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NEWCASTLE WORKING PAPERS IN LINGUISTICS
19(2), 2013

ISSN 2041 - 1057

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NEWCASTLE WORKING PAPERS IN LINGUISTICS
VOLUME 19 (2), 2013 ISSN: 2041 - 1057
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! ! ! BOARD OF EDITORS Burak Sunguralp Tekin Caroline Burns Jean Price Geoffrey Poole

PUBLISHED BY Newcastle University Centre for Research in Linguistics and Language Sciences

FOR INQUIRIES: CRiLLS Room 3.01 & 3.02, Level 3, Old Library Building Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU United Kingdom Telephone: 0191 222 8790 Fax: 0191 222 6592 E-mail: [email protected]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MEANING, SEMANTICS AND SEMIOTICS Noel Burton-Roberts FREE CHOICE NINGUN IN EARLY NAVARRO-ARAGONESE Geoffrey Poole LOND-DISTANCE A-MOVEMENT AND INTRODUCING EXTERNAL ARGUMENTS: PROBLEMS POSED BY THE BEI-CONSTRUCTION IN MANDARIN Alison Biggs ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH DENTAL FRICATIVES BY PAKISTANI LEARNERS Nasir Abbas Syed HARMONIZING THE PASSIVE: A NEW PROPOSAL FOR PASSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR Dominic Thompson & Christoph Scheepers

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Editorial Note

Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics (Online) aims to publicise the productivity of research of the Centre for Research in Linguistics and Language Sciences (CRiLLS) and external contributions. The papers collected in this volume have been contributed by staff and postgraduate students affiliated with Newcastle University as well as presenters at the 7th Newcastle-upon-Tyne Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics.

We would like to thank all of the reviewers for giving their time and expertise to evaluate submissions. Finally, we would like to give our thanks to all of the contributors to this volume.

Editors !

MEANING, SEMANTICS AND SEMIOTICS NOEL BURTON-ROBERTS (Newcastle University) Abstract

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This paper questions the assumption, widespread in linguistic theory and pragmatics, that linguistic expressions have meaning in virtue of possessing semantic properties/content. Problems created by this assumption are discussed and an alternative, semiotic, account of meaning is developed that places ‘linguistic meaning’ in the context of meaning in general. 1. Introduction In a discussion of relevance theory, Dan Wedgwood comments: Relevance theorists have tended to assume that RT can be used... as an adjunct to fairly conventional approaches to other parts of linguistic theory…. But in making the move away from the moderate contextualism of Gricean approaches, RT has more radical consequences, whether we like it or not. In effect, this constitutes a break from conventional perspectives on semantics.... the nature of encoded meaning cannot be understood without active consideration of inferential contributions to meaning. This is nothing less than a reversal of conventional methodology, which tends to abstract away from inferential pragmatic processes as much as possible. ... Once we reject [conventional semantic analysis], as RT does in principle, the nature of encoded meaning becomes an entirely open question.... A great deal of contemporary syntactic theorising is motivated by a wish to account for the perceived semantic character of a given sentence (hence the regular use of levels of representation of syntactic representation like LF, LOGICAL FORM). (2007: 679) These are the thoughts I develop in this paper. I will argue that pragmatic theory - and relevance theory in particular - should be seen as offering a challenge to ‘conventional’ linguistic wisdom. What is at issue is the nature of meaning, no less. I will make a case for - or aim to reinstate - an account of meaning at odds with ‘conventional’ linguistic theorising, by which I will assume Wedgwood means Chomskyan generative grammar (CGG). The relevant CGG assumption is evinced by Brody (1995: 1) when he writes ‘it is a truism that grammar relates sound and meaning’. CGG seeks to achieve this by positing two interface levels of linguistic representation, Phonetic Form (PF) and Logical Form (LF), attributing to expressions two sorts of property, phonological and semantic. This double-interface assumption is assumed to be necessary to the modelling of ‘language as sound with a meaning’ (Chomsky 1995: 2). In reconstructing the idea that expressions ‘have meaning’ by assigning them semantic properties, CGG effectively equates semantics and linguistic meaning. I will argue
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This paper is due to appear in Capone, A. et al. Perspectives on Linguistic Pragmatics (Springer Verlag). I am grateful to Phil Carr, Jerry Fodor, Wolfram Hinzen, Magda Sztencel, Dan Wedgwood and Deirdre Wilson for discussion. Needless to say, they are not responsible for errors or misthinkings in it, nor do/would they necessarily agree with everything in it.

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that this insulates linguistic meaning from meaning in general and is unexplanatory. Furthermore, it is the basis of Grice’s ‘moderate contextualism’. As Wedgwood observes, relevance theory (RT) is radically contextualist in principle but shares Grice’s and CGG’s assumption that there is such a thing as linguistic semantics and Logical Form (LF) thought of as a level of linguistic encoding. To that extent RT’s radical contextualism is qualified. CGG’s double-interface assumption is a legacy of Saussure’s concept of sign (BurtonRoberts & Poole 2006). I approach the topic of this paper through a discussion of the Saussurean sign (in Section 2) because I want to bring semiotics to bear on the subject of meaning and to highlight some problems for CGG’s (Saussurean) reconstruction of ‘sound with a meaning’. I reject that CGG account in favour of a (roughly) ‘Peircean’ concept of sign. This, I argue, is more general in its application, more explanatory and more consistent with the cognitive naturalism of CGG and RT. In the light of that, Section 3 offers a general account of what meaning is, developing ideas touched on in Burton-Roberts (2005, 2007). This account denies that linguistic expressions have semantic properties. It distinguishes meaning and semantics. Assuming, with RT, that only thoughts have (‘real’) semantic content, it argues that meaning is a relation (of something, potentially anything) to the semantic content of a thought, a cognitive relation effected by inference. The crucial idea here is that meaning is not a (semantic) property but a semiotic relation (to semantic properties). This goes for meaning generally; my aim is to situate linguistic meaning within a semiotic account of meaning in general. My own view is that the picture of meaning that emerges is consistent with RT. One might even go as far as to say that relevance, as defined in RT, is meaning.2 2. 1. The Saussurean sign... There are two well-known features of the Saussurean linguistic sign. The first is that the linguistic sign is constituted by the conjunction of a concept and a sound image. Sound image and concept combine to make a further entity, the sign itself, which is a ‘double entity’ (Saussure, 65), ‘a two-sided psychological entity’ (66).3 The relation between concept and sign and that between sound image and sign are part~whole relations. In modern parlance, the concept is the sign’s semantics; the sound image is its phonology. The relation between semantics and phonology is thus a part~part relation. Saussure (e.g. 67) explicitly refers to the sign as ‘the whole’ and to the sound image and concept as its ‘parts’. Crucially, the same idea is evident in CGG’s double-interface assumption: ‘there are sensorimotor systems that access one aspect of an expression and there are conceptual-intentional systems that access another aspect of an expression, which means that an expression has to have two kinds of symbolic objects as its parts’ (Chomsky 2000b: 9). The formal study of part~part and part~whole relations is called ‘mereology’. I won’t be invoking formal mereology, but I’ll borrow the term ‘mereological’ in discussing the
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I won’t push this thought further but the reader may want to bear it in mind in Section 3 below. Incidentally, Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995: Chapter 1) assume that any semiotic approach to meaning aims to reduce all meaning to a code model of communication. That may have been true of 20th century extensions of Saussurean semiotics (they cite Levi-Strauss and Barthes) - in connection with which they write (with justification in my view) ‘The recent history of semiotics has been one of simultaneous institutional success and intellectual bankruptcy’ (p. 7) - but nothing could be further removed from my aim here. Whereas, in their terms, ‘The semiotic approach to communication... is a generalisation of the code model of verbal communication’ (p. 6), my aim is precisely the opposite: to situate linguistic meaning within a more general semiotic - i.e. inferential account of meaning. My claim is that all meaning (though not all communication, see note 9 below) - and all ‘decoding’ involved in the construction of meaning - is inferential in character. 3 All references to ‘Saussure’ are to Wade Baskin’s (1959) translation of the Cours de Linguistique Generale.

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Saussurean sign. In an intuitively equivalent formulation, concept and sound image are respectively the semantic and phonological properties of (or ‘aspects’ of) the linguistic sign. Saussure has little to say about where syntax figures in this. This is addressed in CGG, where phonological and semantic features are treated as properties (parts, aspects) of syntactic entities (Burton-Roberts 2011). This adds substance to the ‘double entity’ idea: if you believe in the existence of a further entity jointly constituted by phonological and semantic features, there should indeed be something substantive to say about it – e.g. that it is syntactic - over and above what can be said about the phonological and the semantic. The second feature of the Saussurean sign is that it involves a semiotic relation, the signifier~signified relation. The sound image signifies the concept. Significantly, nothing in CGG reflects this feature of Saussure’s thinking, a matter I address below. Now, the mereological (part~part) relation and the semiotic (signifier~signified) relation are at least different. Since things generally are related in more ways than one, it might seem that sound image and concept can be related in both these ways, as Saussure assumed (see Fig. 1). Figure 1. The Saussurean sign SIGN
sound image concept

Mereological: co-part, or co-property Semiotic: signifier

co-part, or co-property signified

Against this, I will argue that the two relations are so different as to be incompatible; we must choose between them. Notice first that the part~part relation is symmetric, in the sense that they are co-parts, co-constitutive of the Saussurean sign. Saussure (113) draws a general analogy with a sheet of paper: in a language (‘a system of signs’), sound image and concept each relate to the sign as the two sides of a sheet of paper relate to the sheet. As we shall see, this symmetry was crucial for Saussure. In sharp contrast, the semiotic relation is antisymmetric. One term is the signifier, not the signified; the other is the signified, not the signifier. It’s a relation from the sound image (signifier) to the concept (signified). The sheet-of-paper analogy is completely inappropriate in this connection. Notice furthermore that on the mereological conception there is no direct relation between sound image and concept. Their (part~part) relation to each other is entirely derivative: they are in that relation only because each is, primarily, in the (antisymmetric) part~whole relation to the sign. In that respect, the relation between sound image and concept is not self-explanatory. The semiotic relation, by contrast, is direct and primary. It does not follow from any other more direct relation. In that sense, by comparison with the mereological relation, the semiotic relation between sound image and concept is selfexplanatory. A further difference is that the mereological account treats as an object (‘the sign’) what the semiotic idea, by itself, treats purely as a relation. The mereological idea, by definition, entails that there is an object distinct from both sound image and concept constituted by their combination. Not so the semiotic idea. Unless mereological, a relation

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between two objects implies no further object.4 Notice that ‘property-of’ talk in connection with the mereological conception is questionable on the semiotic conception. If x stands in a semiotic relation to y (i.e. signifies y), there is no conceptual necessity to posit an object Z (the ‘sign’) for x and y to be properties of. This doesn’t mean that, on a purely semiotic conception, we have to abandon any idea of ‘sign’. There is an alternative, non-mereological, conception of ‘sign’ compatible with the signifier~signified relation. On this conception it is the signifier itself that is the sign (Fig.2). Figure 2. The ‘purely semiotic’ (Peircean) sign
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I call it ‘Peircean’ because it is consistent with the thought of C. S. Peirce (1933). But I won’t be invoking the whole panoply of Peircean semiotics. Furthermore, I will assume with Saussure, not Peirce - that the signified is always a concept (Section 3 below). Saussure (67) explicitly rejects this (Fig. 2) concept of sign, insisting on the mereologically constituted sign (Fig. 1). Against this I will suggest that the mereological account is conceptually (a) insufficient and (b) unnecessary, even (c) assuming it is possible. And there are other objections to it, notwithstanding its influence on CGG’s double-interface assumption and moderate contextualism’s ‘encoded meaning/semantics’. The mereological account is conceptually insufficient, I hold, because there is nothing actually semiotic about it, in and of itself. Mereological (part~part and part~whole) relations have nothing to do with meaning. What I mean is that they fail to differentiate the relation we are concerned with from e.g. that between the barrel and the nib of a pen, the two sleeves of a shirt, the seat and back of a chair, which are mereological. This mereological idea offers no explanation of why a sound image (phonology) and a concept (semantics) should actually be related. It might be objected that this ignores the fact that, for Saussure, the relation between sound image and concept isn’t only mereological, it’s also semiotic. But that just goes to show the conceptual insufficiency of the mereological idea in this context. It needs to be supplemented by the semiotic idea. As regards conceptual necessity: having supplemented it with the semiotic relation, what conceptual/theoretical work remains for the mereological account? It adds nothing. The semiotic idea, we have just seen, is necessary - and it is in itself sufficient. Furthermore, it yields a concept of sign that is at least more obvious: what is a sign if not a signifier?5 It is also more parsimonious. It calls for just one relation between just two entities. The mereological account multiplies beyond necessity. It posits three relations (two part~whole relations and a part~part relation) and three entities. And even those need supplementing by the semiotic relation. We might even question whether in this context the mereological idea is possible, on the grounds that phonological and semantic properties are sortally distinct. Sortally distinct properties are such that nothing can have both sorts of property. For example: sore throats,
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Other than an abstract set-theoretical entity. See Burton-Roberts (2011) for discussion of the issue in CGG. Saussure explicitly denies the sign is an abstract entity (15, 102), insisting on its being a ‘concrete entity’. His reference to ‘parts’ and ‘wholes’ (e.g. 67) would be inappropriate were he thinking in merely set-theoretical terms. Sets don’t have parts, they have members. 5 It is reasonable to ask what signs are signs of/for. On the Fig. 2 (purely semiotic) notion of sign, the question receives an answer (though a general one): they are signs of/for concepts. But on the Fig.1 (Saussurean) notion of sign, the question is simply incoherent: the mereologically constituted sign isn’t a sign of of/for anything. See below on a necessary precondition for signification (and bootstrapping).

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earthquakes, epidemics, years, prime numbers, marriages, mortgages - none of these is of a sort that can be sky blue, right-angled, bisyllabic or constitute a proof of Fermat’s last theorem. Against this it might be argued that, since they are both mentally constituted, phonological and semantic properties cannot be sortally incompatible. However, given how phonology and semantics are grounded, their respective contents are sortally incompatible: articulatory/acoustic vs. conceptual-intentional. Arguably, the sortal incompatibility of sound image and concept is the basis of Saussurean arbitrariness: whatever species of relation holds between sortally incompatible properties, it can only be arbitrary (non-natural). Within CGG this sortal incompatibility is effectively acknowledged in its assumption that phonological and semantic properties are mutually un-interpretable (Burton-Roberts 2011). Given this sortal consideration, can we really allow that something could be mereologically constituted as both bisyllabic and prime, e.g. the putative ‘double entity’ seven? That question doesn’t even arise on the Peircean conception. The Peircean sign is bisyllabic, not prime. Sortally distinct, and separate, from the sign itself is the numerical concept it signifies, which is prime not bisyllabic. I suggest the relation can only be semiotic, not mereological. Furthermore, since the signified is mind-internal (a concept), the mereological account must insist the signifier is also mind-internal. Otherwise we would be committed to something (the Fig. 1 ‘sign’) constituted mind-internally in one part and mind-externally in its other part. I take that to be incoherent. Of course, Saussure does insist on the mind-internal nature of the sound image - reasonably, assuming it’s phonological. However, the purely semiotic account (Fig. 2), while compatible with a sign being mind-internal, is compatible with a sign being a mind-external phenomenon. There’s no reason why a semiotic relation can’t hold between a mind-external phenomenon and a (mind-internal) concept/thought. A wide range of mind-external phenomena does function as signs for us.6 Potentially at least, all phenomena do. I take this to be the substance of RT’s (very general) First Cognitive Principle of Relevance (Carston 2002: 379). In that respect, the purely semiotic (Peircean) conception has wider application, applying not just to linguistic signs but to signs in general. Notwithstanding Saussure’s suggestion (e.g. 16) that linguistics might form part of a more general ‘semiology’, his account actually applies only to linguistic signs. The symmetry of his mereological conception is crucial here. Saussure insists on this symmetry on the grounds that sound image (qua signifier) and concept (qua signified) are related by mutual implication (e.g. 103). Recall the sheet-of-paper analogy. However, while the terms ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’ are mutually implying, it doesn’t follow that the things those terms refer to (sound image, concept) are mutually implying. What I mean is that a concept is still a concept whether or not it happens to be signified by a sound image. In fact, surely, a conceptually necessary precondition for signification is that the signified exist independently of the fact that it is signified. (There is again an asymmetry here"! for nothing similar can be said of the phonological sound image, the whole rationale of which lies in its being a signifier.)! But all this is precisely what Saussure seeks to deny. The symmetry of his mereological conception is motivated by his view that concepts only exist as constituents of linguistic signs. He explicitly denies that ‘ready made ideas exist before words’ (65, see also 112). Assuming concepts necessarily figure in thought/ideas, the Saussurean contention is that thought is couched only in the signs
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The nearest Saussure comes to allowing this is in the idea that (mentally constituted) signs are ‘realized’ in phonetic phenomena. But even here, it is surely just the signifier (the sound image) that’s ‘realized’. Since the Saussurean sign is constituted in part by a concept, it’s hard to accept it could be ‘realized’ in phonetic phenomena.

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- the ‘code’ (14) - of some particular language. The motivation, in short, is an extreme version of the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This must be rejected, I believe. As Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995: 192) and Carston (2002: 30-42) argue, what is thought/thinkable extends well beyond what is linguistically encoded/encodable. This is not a merely philosophical or theoretical matter; it’s the stuff of common experience. Chomsky (2000b: 76) puts it well: ‘...very often, I seem to be thinking and finding it hard to articulate what I am thinking. It is a very common experience… to try to express something, to say it and to realize that is not what I meant... it is pretty hard to make sense of that experience without assuming that you think without language. You think and then you try to find a way to articulate what you think and sometimes you can't do it at all;... if you are thinking, then presumably there's some kind of conceptual structure there.’ The universality of such experience, the necessary precondition for signification mentioned earlier and the related problem of how the Saussurean sign could actually evolve/arise other than by the merest (most circular) bootstrapping (Fodor e.g. 1975), all lead me to agree there must be ‘some kind of conceptual structure there’, a language of thought ‘used internally’ (Chomsky 2006: 9), if subconsciously, logically prior to a speaker’s particular language, as argued by Fodor and assumed in RT.7 How is the set of concepts delimited? Since the relation between sound image and concept is arbitrary, if concepts only exist as constituents of linguistic signs then the set of concepts must be arbitrary (and, notice, semantics = linguistic semantics). Another response, more consistent with the naturalism of CGG and RT, is that the set of concepts is the set of humanly entertainable concepts, a set delimited by nature - human nature. This is consistent with a Peircean conception of sign but not with what motivates the Saussurean sign. 2.2. ...CGG and pragmatics I’ve suggested we must choose between the Saussurean (mereological) sign and the Peircean (purely semiotic) sign and have sought to show we must choose the latter. All this would be of merely historical interest were it not that CGG makes the diametrically opposite choice. It is Saussure’s mereological idea that is embodied in CGG’s idea of a (syntactic) object with phonological and semantic properties (‘aspects…parts’). And only the mereological idea. CGG doesn’t appeal to ‘sign’. CGG eschews all reference to semiotic concerns. In CGG we are asked to make do just with a mereological (part~part) account of the relation between phonology and semantics. I have argued this is at least conceptually insufficient - uninformative and unexplanatory. Mereological relations have nothing to do with meaning. CGG’s response might be that, in attributing semantics to expressions, it assigns them their meanings. This equates ‘having meaning’ with ‘having semantic properties’ in the linguistic context. The next section presents an account of meaning that undermines that equation. In the meantime, I here offer some observations on the mereological account in the context of CGG and RT. In addition to the above objections to it, the mereological account poses two problems internal to CGG (Burton-Roberts 2011). The first is this. As noted, phonological and
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I would argue it is phylogenetically and ontogenetically prior. The passage from Chomsky, incidentally, is consistent with a more nuanced version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I am not the first to suggest there is more than one kind of thought. There is (a) the kind of thought explicitly referred in that quote and (b) another, also in evidence there, which consists in gaining more conscious access to those thoughts by trying to articulate them. See Burton-Roberts (2011). Grice takes the Saussurean line: ‘A plausible position is that...language is indispensable for thought’ (1989:353). But (355) he is upfront - and unusually clear - on the dilemma this poses re the precondition for signification (his ‘intelligibility’). Less clear (to me) is his proposed solution (355-6).

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semantic properties are acknowledged in CGG to be mutually un-interpretable. Now, if lexical items (and expressions composed of them) are [phon+sem] ‘double entities’, their phonological properties are not interpretable at LF and their semantic properties are not interpretable at PF. As a consequence, neither of the interfaces that the linguistic computation serves is actually capable of interpreting these double entities - words and thus anything composed of words - it is generally thought to manipulate. The second (related) problem is this. I assume, with CGG, that the linguistic computation is universal (invariant) and natural (innate). But how could such a computation possibly operate with objects mereologically constituted by phonological and semantic properties, given that the relation between those properties is arbitrary (non-natural)? Being arbitrary, such relations are cross-linguistically variable, not innate but learned in the course of acquiring a language. This indeed is what Chomsky assumes: ‘there is something like an array of innate concepts and… these are to a large degree merely “labeled” in language acquisition’ (2000a: 65). Notice that this label metaphor (see also pp. 61, 66) is anyway less consistent with CGG’s mereological picture than with the semiotic. It is superfluous, and surely wrong, to posit something constituted both by the label itself and what-it-is-a-label-for. If the label metaphor is appropriate, why not allow that the ‘label’ is (morpho-) phonologically constituted signifier for the concept? To my knowledge Chomsky has only ever mentioned semiotics in a brief and scathing dismissal (2000b: 47-8). This dismissal may relate to a methodological objection to semiotics within ‘conventional’ linguistics. I suggested earlier that the semiotic account (Fig. 2) is recommended over the mereological on the grounds of its wider application, to meaning in general. Within autonomous linguistics (incl. ‘semantics’), this - effectively, the diffuseness of semiotics - would count as a positive dis-recommendation. ‘Semantic theory’ is thought of as concerned exclusively with linguistic meaning. This restriction of the scope of ‘semantics’ might be thought an advantage if linguistics is autonomous, concerned with a module of mind, to be insulated from dealing with interpretation in general. In connection with the project of constructing an ‘interpreter’ that ‘accepts non-linguistic as well as linguistic inputs’, Chomsky writes ‘the study of the interpreter... is not a topic for empirical enquiry...: there is no such topic as the study of everything’ (2000a: 69). See also Fodor’s First Law of the Non-Existence of Cognitive Science: ‘the more global ...a cognitive process is, the less anybody understands it’ (1983: 107). In the light of that, however, one might wonder whether, in assigning ‘semantic’ properties (and Logical Form) to expressions in a module of mind, CGG does in fact claim to deal with meaning/interpretation as generally understood. In fact, Chomsky is actually quite sceptical about such an enterprise (2000a: 21) - it is not the job of science to elucidate folkscientific notions like ‘meaning’ (notwithstanding his ‘language as sound with a meaning’) and indeed sceptical about ‘semantics’ in generative grammar. ‘It is possible that natural language has only syntax and pragmatics; it has “semantics” only in the sense of “the study of how this instrument... is actually put to use”’ (2000a: 132). I believe pragmatic theory does underwrite scepticism regarding ‘the semantics of natural language’ and ‘knowledge of meaning’ (Larson & Segal 1995) within an autonomous, sub-personal generative model of language, independent of how it is put to use (i.e. independent of pragmatics) and, indeed, independent of meaning in general. As for more recent CGG itself, strong minimalism anyway seeks to go ‘beyond explanatory adequacy’ (Chomsky 2004), attributing as little as possible to (modular) unexplained features of UG, seeking explanation in other aspects of human cognition. In the light of that enterprise, situating linguistic meaning within an approach to meaning in general might well be explanatory. ‘Meaning’ may be ‘folk-scientific’ but it can’t be dismissed in the absence of a theory that explains it away.

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Carston (2002: Introduction) is a vigorous defence of RT against the charge that, as a theory of interpretation, it is scientifically impracticable/vacuous. Commenting on her defence in my review (2005: 389), I wrote ‘RT is a theory of something quite specific, however general in its application, namely all that is implied by “optimal relevance”…’ One needs to go further in its defence of course, but how much further? As I understand it, RT’s account of linguistic communication is rooted in a more general theory of how humans interpret the world (recall the sub-title of Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995): ‘communication and cognition’). Carston’s defence seems to retreat from that, portraying RT as about ‘a mental module... domain specific in that it is activated exclusively by ostensive stimuli’ (7). I think this is unfortunate - and even questionable. Stimuli, even humanly produced, don’t come ready-labelled ‘+/- ostensive’. The assumption that a given stimulus is ostensive is just that - an assumption, inferentially derived. If the claim is that linguistic stimuli do come thus ready-labelled, their interpretation still requires a host of occasion/context-specific inferences, as RT itself has shown in response to the problems of what has come to be known as ‘Gricean pragmatics’. Notwithstanding Grice’s preoccupation with meaning in general, he sought (particularly in his ‘Retrospective Epilogue’) to erect a corral around one ‘central’ species of meaning/signification: formal, ‘dictive’ (in the main), timeless, linguistic-type meaning, unrelativised to speakers, occasions or contexts, which ‘will authorize the assignment of truth conditions to... expressions’ (1989: 364), as assumed in ‘semantic theory’. Gricean pragmatics is in fact a defence of this and yields a moderate contextualism. Carston by contrast (2002: 4) suggests that, as ‘cognitive pragmatics’, RT is ‘no longer to be seen as an adjunct to natural language semantics....’ As Wedgwood observes, this is exactly the right conclusion in principle but it is not obviously true in practice. Carston immediately qualifies the above with ‘...though it clearly continues to have essential interaction with semantics’. RT in fact assumes and depends on ‘natural language semantics’, endorsing the attribution of semantic properties to expressions as non-contextual types and their deterministic decoding by a dedicated module of mind. Logical Form (LF), as a level of encoded linguistic (semantic) representation, figures crucially in RT’s explicature/implicature distinction. Although Fodorian in spirit, RT has not in fact pursued Fodor’s suggestion that ‘English has no semantics’ (1998: 6) or his contention ‘that LF is a level of description not of English, but of Mentalese...' (2008: 8). At least, while agreeing with Fodor in locating semantics in thought, RT also posits a ‘linguistic semantics’. Equally, Carston stops short of Recanati’s ‘radical claim that there is no lexical meaning in the sense of stable encoding’ (Carston 2002: 375) and his suggestion (1998: 630) that ‘the only meaning which words have is that which emerges in context’, taking a less ‘extreme’, more ‘conservative’ line ‘on which words do encode something, albeit something very schematic...’. I have discussed this and its problems elsewhere (2005, 2007). It may be true (I think it is) that there can be no naturalistic, causal, mechanistic, subpersonal, modular account of interpretation/meaning. And it may follow that no account of interpretation/meaning is natural science. I leave it to others to decide whether that matters at this stage of the game. As Chomsky has often observed, what counts as natural science has changed in the past. It may in the future, perhaps in the light of questions (and answers) now counting as non-scientific. It is not as if contemporary pragmatics - or cognitive science or linguistics (of the more thoughtful kind) - can claim to have jumped entirely free of ‘philosophising’. Carston’s defence of RT as natural science (on the above terms) is ambitious yet constraining: it unduly moderates RT’s contextualism and, I believe, fails to reflect what is potentially the true scope of the theory.

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3. Meaning Meaning is not exclusively linguistic, nor is ‘sound with a meaning’. If we seek an explanatory account of ‘linguistic meaning’, it should be laid in the nest of these (cognitive, semiotic) truisms. I don’t claim that all of what follows is new. What it aims to show is that it is unnecessary and unexplanatory (not to say plain wrong) to attribute any kind of semantic property/content to linguistic expressions. To that end, section 3.1 argues for a distinction between meaning and semantics. In the light of that, section 3.2 discusses their relation. 3.1. Distinguishing meaning and semantics A phenomenon P is a sign if it is significant. It signifies something (X). Thereby P means X. Consider first some well-worn examples of ‘natural signs’. (i) ‘Those spots mean measles’ (Grice 1989: 213). (ii) Pattering on the window means rain. (iii) Red litmus paper means acid. (iv) Smoke means fire. These are examples of Peirce’s category of ‘indexical’ sign, involving Grice’s ‘natural meaning’. (ii) is a case of ‘sound with a meaning’. What makes P a natural sign of X here is a natural (i.e. agent-less) causal relation between X and P. Pace Peirce, whose terminology suggests that all semiotic relations are representational, these are not representational. As a (natural, indexical) sign of fire, smoke is not a representation of fire. By the same token, they are not ostensive.8 They are signs-of, not signs-for. It’s not nearly that simple of course. None of (i)-(iv) is objectively true, i.e. true in the absence of a subject S noticing P on an occasion. A particular phenomenon P is a sign only if it signifies something (X) to S. And meaning-X-to-S depends on S making inferences based on her beliefs. Red litmus paper in a liquid will mean to S that the liquid is acid only if S assumes it is litmus paper and has the belief B that acid causes litmus paper to turn red. ‘Red litmus paper means acid’ abstracts away from such crucial details, on the assumption that B is (general) knowledge. Those spots may mean measles to a doctor but not to Peter. ‘General knowledge’ and even what passes for ‘the evidence of one’s eyes (ears, etc.)’ don’t obviate the need for inference, however subliminal (Searle 1983). Nor is it true that P means X to S - not if ‘X’ stands for the causing phenomenon. Rather, P means that-X to S. Subject to cognitive conditions just described, smoke is meaningful to S because it communicates to her that there’s a fire – where ‘that there’s a fire’ identifies a thought of S’s. Meaning is by its nature communicative. I take ‘communicates’, when it involves meaning, to be equivalent to ‘leads S to entertain a thought’.9 What follows from all this, even if obvious, is important. Although we say that P, as a sign, ‘is meaningful’ or ‘has’ meaning, and although we may talk of ‘sound with a meaning’, such talk does not identify any property of P. More to the point - and this is my point - no one would want to say that their ‘having meaning’ identifies a semantic property of those phenomena. On an occasion of pattering-on-a-window, it is true (false) that it is raining but no one would attribute any truth condition to the pattering. If truth conditions are what you’re after, they pertain to S’s thought that-X. What might be said to be ‘the meaning of P’ is
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However, they can be exploited ostensively in a way that either depends on their indexicality or overrides it. A Glaswegian accent is an indexical sign of Glaswegian provenance but not if deliberately adopted (in which case, if not intended to deceive, it will be representational). Susan putting on her coat is an indexical sign of her intention to go out (perhaps) but she may exploit that with the semiotic intention of (ostensively) representing her desire to do so. White smoke rising from the Vatican ostensively represents a Papal election and, if so recognised, that will override (iv). 9 I am concerned with communication but only insofar as it can held to involve meaning (and thus thought and inference). There are of course other kinds of communication – e.g. among honey bees and (chemical) among cells – as Deirdre Wilson reminds me. I am not concerned with these.

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entirely extrinsic to P. Despite the predicational similarity, ‘means X’ is utterly different from ‘rises when heated’ or ‘is mercury/heavy/edible’. In at least the cases discussed so far indexical signs in general - meaning and semantics are clearly distinct. With indexical signs we are far from language but, in the respects that matter here, the above holds quite generally. Take Peirce’s category of symbolic signs - Grice’s non-natural meaning (meaningnn). I illustrate this first by non-linguistic examples but we are close enough to language here, I suggest, for it to have a direct bearing on ‘linguistic meaning’. What I am suggesting is that, as with indexical signs so with symbolic signs (whether linguistic or not): meaning and semantics need to be distinguished. Illustrative phenomena are a red flag (warning that artillery practice is in progress or swimming is forbidden), a gunshot (to start a race) and a ringing bell (to stop the bus, raise the alarm, etc.), the last two being ‘sound with a meaning’. What makes these ‘symbolic’ is the fact that there’s no natural causality involved here. These are non-natural in depending on other things: (a) on a certain convention, (b) on semiotic intention, and (c) on inferentially derived recognition by S of (a) and (b). Unlike indexical signs, symbolic signs are representational (in virtue of (a)-(c) above); they are ostensive. The difference is that, symbolic signs being representational, that-X is meant. (We don’t say that-there’s-a-fire is meant by smoke.) Here ‘meant’ = ‘intended’; and ‘intended’ here is short for ‘intended to mean (to S)’. In these symbolic cases, an agent A communicates that-X to S by means of P. In other words, A arranges for the occurrence of some phenomenon P, intending that its occurrence will - in virtue of (c) - communicate to S (lead S to have the thought) that-X. Since we are not telepathic, some perceptible P is necessary. It was Grice who instated intention and its recognition at the centre of symbolic (nn) meaning (‘m-intention’, indeed). A convention, though important when involved, only makes for the possibility of meaning.10 But possible meaning is not meaning (any more than a ‘possible queue’ on a motorway is a queue). A red flag actually means nothing to anyone in its box. Even when flying and intended/meant thereby to mean/communicate e.g. that artillery practice is in progress, it won’t actually mean that if no one (S) notices it other than F, the person who flew it. I’m not sure it actually means that to F himself, crucial though its potential meaning was to his intention in hoisting it. (And, to F’s commanding officer, it might mean only that his order - to F, to hoist the warning flag - has been carried out). It is the implementation of a convention on an occasion that makes for actual meaning and then only if some (other) S assumes that it was meant/intended to mean/communicate - to her what it potentially means (rather than, in the case of the ringing bell, as a demonstration in fire practice). As regards ‘artillery practice is in progress’ or ‘swimming is forbidden’, a flying flag might be said to be ‘ambiguous’ in virtue of there being distinct conventions governing what it potentially means. But, for that reason, such ‘ambiguity’ has the same nugatory status as ‘possible meaning’. It’s not actual ambiguity. Actual ambiguity is an occasion-specific subjective mental state of (inferential, interpretative) indecision of S (Burton-Roberts 1994). There are of course big differences between indexical and symbolic signs. Nevertheless, I see no reason not to say that, when P functions for someone (S) as a symbolic sign, P ‘has meaning’ for S in the same sense as when P is an indexical sign. It is only the cognitive mechanics that subserve the meaning that differ: (a)-(c) above in the symbolic but not the indexical case. Indexical signs involve just one person (S) while symbolic signs involve more than one (A and S) but that doesn’t alter the general fact about meaning. It concerns only whether the meaning involves intention (was meant) and convention. Both communicate an idea to S, i.e. lead her to have a certain thought. It is true that, with symbolic
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As the first two examples of note 8 above show, while all non-natural (representational, ostensive) signs depend on intention, not all depend on convention.

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signs, someone (by means of P) is communicating rather than merely something (P) communicating - but it’s inferentially dependent communication in both cases.11 Symbolic signs also differ from indexical signs in that, when symbolic, the whole rationale of P lies in its being (intended as) a sign. Since A arranges for it, the very occurrence of P is motivated by that. But that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) tempt us into thinking that P’s status as sign (for S) involves any intrinsic property of P. Nor would we attribute any truth condition to a flying flag. Truth conditions lie elsewhere. My point is this: impressive though the differences between indexical and symbolic signs are, P as a symbolic sign ‘has meaning’ (for S) but it no more has semantic properties than any indexical sign. Indeed, what makes for meaning with symbolic signs is, if anything, doubly extrinsic to P. Subject to sorting out issues with ‘word’ (below), I see no reason not to say that words are symbolic signs - and thus that all the above applies to them. In some quarters, that’s uncontroversial. But Grice wrote ‘...the distinction between natural and non-natural meaning is, I think, what people are getting at when they display an interest in a distinction between “natural” and “conventional” signs. But I think my formulation is better. For some things which can meannn something are not signs (e.g. words are not)’ (1989: 215, my emphasis). In the absence of any explanation or argument, I can only speculate why Grice (or anyone) should deny that words are signs. He was interested in Peirce’s semiotics (Chapman 2005: 71) and opened ‘Meaning’ (1989: 213-223) by discussing indexical and symbolic signs (though ‘Peirce’, ‘semiotics’, ‘indexical’ and ‘symbolic’ make no appearance). So, to speculate, could Grice’s denial have been in aid of driving a wedge between (semiotic) meaning in general and word meaning? This would be consistent with the semantic ‘corral’ Grice sought to erect around word meaning. For, if the denial was motivated by the assumption that words have meaning in virtue of having semantic properties (‘having meaning’ in a literal, objective, property sense), that certainly would distinguish their meaning from that of signs generally, as I have sought to show. But, widespread (well-nigh universal) though it is, the assumption that words are unique in ‘having meaning’ in virtue of having semantic properties has actually never been defended explicitly. In the absence of explicit supporting argument, a distinction between ‘meaning-as-semantics’ and semiotic meaning (the former ‘linguistic’ but not explained beyond that) is conceptually profligate, uninformative and not explanatory of linguistic meaning. A more persuasive reason for denying that words are signs might go like this. At least as treated thus far, signs are perceptible phenomena (‘P’ above). But words are not perceptible phenomena. Hence words are not signs. I’m prepared to accept that. However, the relevant perceptible phenomena here are the phonetic phenomena we think of as ‘uttered words’. The question is: When do such phenomena count as uttered words? And, since ‘uttered word’ suggests the existence of words independent of and prior to utterance, what is a word anyway? The CGG (and RT) answer is that a word is a syntactic object constituted by phonological and semantic properties. But I doubt whether proponents of this answer really believe that what we physically utter literally has syntactic and semantic properties. It’s agreed, surely, that what speakers utter are sounds - brute sounds. In which case, what
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Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995: 22-23) deny this. Their discussion involves an example of the ostensive use of an indexical sign: ‘Suppose that Mary intends to inform Peter of the fact that she has a sore throat. All she has to do is let him hear her hoarse voice…’ (22). Of this they write (23) ‘This should not be regarded as a form of communication’ - a denial that must apply, a fortiori, to (non-ostensive) indexical signs as such. For myself, I see no reason to deny that, if Peter is led to think that Mary has a sore throat from hearing her hoarse voice whether or not by speaking in that voice she intended to inform him of it - her hoarse voice (P) does communicate to him that she has a sore throat.

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speakers utter can no more have semantic properties than the pattering of rain or a starter’s gunshots can. Phonetic phenomena functioning as linguistic signs involve a phonology (more strictly, a morpho-phonology). But I don’t want to say (and I don’t think phonologists do) that uttered sounds themselves have phonological properties. Actual sounds counting as ‘linguistic’ are articulatory implementations of a phonology. What a given phonological system does is license the production of phonetic phenomena (actual sounds). That much is uncontroversial. But in what sense does a phonology ‘license’ sounds? My claim is that it licenses them for use as symbolic (representational) signs.12 It is in virtue of this, not the possession of semantic properties, that we might talk of linguistic ‘sound with a meaning’. On this account, then, a word is a phonologically constituted license for the use of sounds as symbolic signs. A word is not an object (with semantic properties) but a phonologically constituted semiotic license. It’s a rule, if you like. As such, words are indeed not signs and don’t themselves ‘have meaning’. Words (as rules) only make for the possibility of signs and thus the possibility of meaning. P counts as an ‘uttered word’ and thus an actual sign when it is assumed to be the physical implementation of a (morpho-) phonologically-constituted semiotic license. This licensing is subject to the cognitive conditions (a)-(c) above and all the provisos discussed there. Condition (a) made reference to ‘convention’. The above amounts to the suggestion that a word is a phonologically constituted convention. By ‘convention’ I simply mean a relational locus of (non-natural, symbolic) Saussurean arbitrariness. I don’t mean it is conventional in the sense of existing in a supposedly objective ‘public language’ external to individuals (c.f. Sperber and Wilson’s (1998) ‘public words’). As Chomsky argues (e.g. 1986), there are no such public languages (‘E-languages’). Conventionality in this ‘public’ sense, insofar as it exists as a linguistic phenomenon, is rooted in the personal assumptions of individuals (Pateman 1987). These are I-linguistic assumptions (where ‘I’ stands for ‘individual’), collectively amounting to an I-assumption about others’ words - effectively, the I-assumption that others implement the same conventions as ‘I’. We notice this assumption in inferential interpretation consciously only when faced with its fallibility. A famous fictional example (from Sheridan’s The Rivals) is Mrs Malaprop’s “Sir, you are the pineapple of politeness!” Here the need for inference regarding her I-language (her I-conventions/licenses) and thus her I-assumptions about ‘the public language’ is more apparent (intentionally so, it being fictional) and it is generally successful (Davidson 1986). What does pineapple mean? The ‘semantic’ answer, of supposedly objective necessity, runs: ‘pineapple means PINEAPPLE’. But this is either vacuous (‘pineapple means what it means’) or - insofar as it implies that pineapple always and for everyone means the same thing - simply false. There is no literally ‘objective/public’ fact here, i.e., no fact independent of particular I-assumptions and inferences about others’ I-assumptions and intentions on occasions, however well-evidenced those assumptions might seem to be. Nor is there any call here for talk of ‘a coming apart of speaker meaning and linguistic meaning’ (Carston 2002: 18). What is the use of words - including Mrs Malaprop’s - if not linguistic? Words mean what speakers mean by them on occasions of use (Recanati 1998) - and that, in the case of Mrs Malaprop’s pineapple, is what I (and I believe most others) mean by pinnacle. More relevant here, because empirically (non-fictionally) and more widely attested, are certain uses of disinterested, infer, refute, antisocial - uses in which they mean what I, and I believe some others, mean by uninterested, imply, reject, unsociable. But who am I (or
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This is the ‘representational’ (as against CGG’s ‘realizational’) conception of phonology proposed by the Representational Hypothesis (e.g. BR 2000, 2011, BR & Poole 2006).

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anyone) to damn these as ‘misuse’ - let alone imply they are not ‘linguistic’ - especially when, on the evidence of my own understanding of them (given my I-appreciation of their prevalence), they are part of my own I-language? As work in RT has shown, even when other speakers’ uttered words appear to be consistent with our own I-assumptions about ‘standard (normal/public) meaning’, they seldom if ever actually mean exactly that. See e.g. Sperber & Wilson (1998) on tired. Furthermore, as Carston (2002: Ch.5) vividly demonstrated in a discussion of open and happy, it is not even clear we could ever actually grasp such ‘standard’ (objectively encoded) meanings. Meaning (actual meaning) just is personal, neither sub-personal nor supra-personal (public). A case in point is “He was upset but not upset”, offered by a witness in O. J. Simpson’s trial, cited by Carston (2002: 324 and 2004). But Carston’s (2004: 839) discussion of it illustrates what I have been questioning. She writes ‘As far as linguistically supplied information goes, this is a contradiction, a fact that presumably must be captured somewhere within a semantics for natural language’. I have been urging, in effect, that there is no fact here to be captured within a semantics for ‘English’, let alone for ‘natural language’. What there undoubtedly is here includes the articulatory/acoustic fact of the double occurrence of upset. But only a firm commitment to the double-interface [phon+sem] assumption - and thus to linguistic semantics - would suggest that this phonetic fact goes, of objective necessity, hand-in-hand with some unique semantic fact. Carston herself points out that what’s intended and recognised - the actual meaning - is not contradictory, representing this by her distinction ‘UPSET*’ vs. ‘UPSET**’. It is this, as RT itself argues, that’s (‘really’) semantic. ‘Convention’ needs more discussion than space allows. I’ll mention just one issue in this connection. With convention comes the idea of ‘encoding’. As I have discussed elsewhere (2005, 2007), RT operates with what I’ve called a ‘constitutive’ notion of encoding, according to which the encoded meaning of a word is a constitutive semantic property of it, deterministically decoded not inferred (Carston 2002: 322-23), consistent with CGG’s Saussurean double-interface assumption. However, by ‘encoding’ I mean something different, briefly contemplated by Carston (2002, 363) but not pursued. In illustration of what I mean, and to keep things very simple, take the Morse code, where (the convention is that) ‘dot-dash’ encodes THE LETTER ‘A’. The whole point of the Morse code is that ‘dot-dash’ is not the letter ‘A’. It has none of its properties. ‘Dot-dash’ is, quite distinctly, a sign for - a pointer to, a representation of, indeed ‘means’ - THE LETTER ‘A’. I accept there is such a thing as ‘encoded meaning’ only in this latter (relational, semiotic, non-constitutive) sense, distinguishing what’s-encoded (x) from what-encodes-it - E(x) - subject always to the above on conventions and in no sense that admits of deterministically decoded, as distinct from inferred, meaning. I have in effect been arguing with Fodor (1998: 9) that ‘English has no semantics’. But Fodor immediately follows that with ‘Learning English isn’t learning a theory about what its sentences mean, it’s learning how to associate its sentences with the corresponding thoughts’. There is much I would question in this but what concerns me here is the implied equation between (not)-having-semantics and ‘(not)-having meaning’. If the claim that ‘English has no semantics’ is to be sustained with any plausibility, we need to avoid any suggestion that what doesn’t have semantics doesn’t ‘have meaning’. I hope I’ve shown that this does not follow, given a distinction between meaning and semantics. On the contrary, as I will argue in the next section, ‘learning how to associate [!]s with ...thoughts’ precisely amounts to ‘learning...what [!]s mean’. Jerry Fodor (p.c.) has dismissed this as terminological. Nevertheless, it seems to me important if ‘English has no semantics’ is to command assent.

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3.2. Relating meaning and semantics I have sought to show that meaning is not a property. More particularly, it is not a semantic property. Meaning and semantics must be distinguished. I think it follows clearly from 3.1 that meaning is a relation. Talk of ‘sound-meaning relations’ (or of ‘relating sound and meaning’) has always made me uneasy. What exactly was sound supposed to be related to? And what kind/species of relation was it supposed to be? Unease is dispelled in recognising that such talk treats meaning as one term (one of the relata) of a relation when it is in fact the relation itself. Meaning is a (indeed the) cognitive, antisymmetric, semiotic relation from something (!) to something else (X). As I show below, ! can be anything, not just a mind-external phenomenon P. But for a relation to be semiotic (i.e. for it to be meaning) X must be a thought T. (It can be just a concept, as in the Morse code example, but it’s thoughts I’m mainly concerned with.) For ! to actually mean X to S is for ! to communicate that-X to S i.e. ! leads S to entertain the thought that-X. As noted, we’re tempted to say that ! ‘has’ meaning and to talk of ‘!’s meaning’. But notice we’re equally tempted to say !’s meaning ‘lies in’ the thought, that the content of the thought is the meaning of !. Well, meaning can’t both be a property of ! and yet lie in T. The quandary is explained and resolved if meaning lies neither in ! nor in T but in their relation. Thoughts are where semantics enters the picture. Thoughts I assume are conceptually constituted. Thought involves concepts syntactically complex enough to be entertained as representations i.e. those that can be objects of propositional attitudes. An actual thought is one that is so entertained. I hold that it is concepts (including those that can be entertained as thoughts) and only concepts that have semantic content. The relation between meaning and semantics, then, is this. Meaning is a relation to semantics – an antisymmetric semiotic relation from ! (anything) to conceptual/semantic content. Now, since semantic content is necessarily one of the terms of the semiotic/meaning relation, it follows that you can’t have meaning without semantics. But it doesn’t follow that meaning is semantics; this relational account of meaning distinguishes meaning and semantics. As I argue below, even - indeed especially - when we want to say that something both ‘has meaning’ and has semantic content, we still need to distinguish. Nor does it follow, on the assumption that linguistic expressions ‘have meaning’, that semantic properties are linguistic (if by ‘linguistic’ we mean pertaining-to-languages rather than pertaining-to-thelanguage-of-thought). No-meaning-without-semantics holds across the board: it goes as much for (symbolic) linguistic signs as for non-linguistic signs, be they symbolic or indexical. The semantics of a given concept/thought is constitutive of and only of that concept/thought. It is not the semantics of anything else. P is an actual linguistic sign (and as such ‘has’ actual meaning) when it counts as an uttered word or (temporal, linear) concatenation of uttered words - that is, when P is produced with the intention of implementing a morpho/phonologically constituted semiotic Ilicense in aid of representing the syntactically (hierarchically) structured semantic content constitutive of a particular thought. P does not, in virtue of being intended to represent such content/properties, have such content/properties itself. That’s why Ps that count as sequences of uttered words require ‘parsing’. I take parsing to be a matter of putting what lacks syntactico-semantic properties into (semiotic, representational) ‘correspondence’ with what has such properties. A brief (all too brief) Fodorian digression is needed here. I have appealed to some notion of a ‘language of thought’ but how much of the above is Fodorian I hesitate to say. I had better put on record that I depart from Fodor’s account of semantic/conceptual ‘content’.

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This, again, involves property vs. relation. His account of conceptual ‘content’ is externalist and relational - ‘content is constituted, exhaustively, by symbol-world relations’ (Fodor 1998: 14). This is not what I mean. By conceptual ‘content’ I mean a (indeed the individuating) property of a concept.13 This is an internalist constitutive notion of conceptual content - and nativist, implying that what you acquire is not a concept but a certain kind of access to a concept (from worldly and/or linguistic experience). However, this may be ‘terminological’, since Fodor himself allows that concept-world relations are determined by something ‘minddependent’, which I assume has to do with the concept itself. ‘Being a doorknob is just: striking our kinds of minds in the way that doorknobs do’ (Fodor 1998: 162). This seems to me to allow, if not demand, that the concept DOORKNOB has some kind of internal constitutive property. This for me is its ‘content’, determining non-arbitrarily what external phenomena it ‘locks onto’ and thereby makes sense of. Concept-world relations (semantics in an externalist, relational sense), it seems to me, arise when a concept sufficiently complex to be entertained as a representation actually is so entertained. I think this amounts to saying that the distinction-and-relation between internalist and externalist semantic content is the distinction-and-relation between the language of thought and actual thoughts. End of digression. I earlier undertook to show that, even when something can be said both to have semantic content and to ‘have’ meaning, meaning (the relation) and semantics (one term of that relation) must be distinguished. What’s at issue here is whether thoughts (concepts), in and of themselves, ‘have meaning’. I’ve assumed thoughts have semantic/conceptual content. But do they, thereby (in virtue of just that fact), ‘have meaning’? My answer is ‘No’. I don’t recall this question ever having been asked but, intuitively, that seems to me the right answer. Independently of that, my answer must be ‘No’ given what I’m claiming meaning is. It is signs that ‘have meaning’ but thoughts are not, in and of themselves, signs. That is, it is not necessary, not definitional of a thought, that a thought leads you to have a thought. The only sense in which that could be definitional would be if a given thought led you have that very thought. Self-causing thoughts are out, I assume. Your having thought Tj does not communicate Tj to you. In short, semantic content is not, in itself, semiotic - it is not, in itself, meaning. However, although I am claiming that thoughts in and of themselves don’t ‘have’ meaning (are not in and of themselves signs), I am not denying that, nevertheless, thoughts can ‘have meaning’, i.e. can function as signs in the mental life of an individual. They generally do. (It is this that motivated my earlier move from ‘P’, for external phenomena, to ‘!’, for anything.) The point is, though, that this ‘meaning of’ a given thought T, for S, is distinct from its semantic content. The idea is simply this: having one thought T1 can lead you to have/entertain another thought T2 whose semantic content may be entirely distinct from that of T1. Having T1 can communicate to you (the distinct content of) T2. This in fact strengthens the distinction between semantics and meaning. (The scare quotes around ‘have (meaning)’ and ‘meaning of’ are a reminder that the meaning lies neither in T1 nor T2 but in the relation T1"T2.) I illustrate this below but I must first address an issue I’ve not attended to. Let’s say Susan (S) sees something ! in the kitchen which she takes to be a pile of clean washing. This needs unpacking: ! is a visual stimulus and S’s first thought (T1) on seeing ! is THAT’S (or LO!) A PILE OF CLEAN WASHING. What I’m calling ‘first thoughts’ are, in psychological terminology, percepts. My previous use of ‘P’ (for phenomenon) obscured the distinction between stimulus and percept (the result of mentally processing the stimulus). Thereby it slid
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Fodor (ibid.) comments that his atomistic theory of concepts ‘allows’ him ‘not to hold that one’s inferential dispositions determine the content of one’s concepts’. It seems to me that it forces him not to hold that and forces his relational account of ‘content’. Incidentally, on atomism in RT, see Burton-Roberts (2005: 339).

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over the issue of whether mere stimuli are signs. Is [stimulus"percept] a semiotic relation? In other words, is it meaning? Since I’ve described the percept as a ‘first thought’ (T1), you will have guessed I want to say it is meaning. Given how S is internally constituted, the stimulus leads S to have a percept (P for ‘percept’ now), an inferentially-derived mental representation. P is a conceptual interpretation of that stimulus. Without percepts there’s no meaning, just meaningless stimuli. The inferential move from ! to SMOKE(!) is different from, but not different in kind from, the move from SMOKE(!) to CAUSED-BY-FIRE(!). If [stimulus"percept] is excluded from (on grounds of being in some sense prior to) any semiotic move, where do we stop? Is CAUSED-BY-FIRE(!) a percept? I’m bothering with this because it might be felt that treating the [stimulus"percept] relation as meaning stretches ‘meaning’ too far, thereby undermining my account. I want to say it is meaning and, given the generality of my project for ‘meaning’, I don’t regard this as undermining. So, Susan’s first thought (T1) is THAT’S (or LO!) A PILE OF CLEAN WASHING. Let’s say that, given Susan’s cognitive context, CS - her current mental state, her projects and preoccupations - T1 leads her to have (communicates to her) another thought T2: JOHN HAS DONE THE WASHING. (If T1 is true then, given CS, T2 is true; T1 by assumption is true, hence T2 is true.) Now let’s say that, given CS, T2 leads to T3: I DON’T NEED TO DO ANY WASHING RIGHT NOW and T3 in turn to T4: I CAN FINISH MY LECTURE RIGHT NOW. Susan will almost certainly go further - subject to constraints expounded by relevance theory - but I’ll stop there. The stimulus and each of T1, T2 and T3 are signs for S, given CS. The ‘meaning of’ T1 for S (and, I claim, ‘of’ the stimulus itself) ultimately and indirectly ‘lies in’ T4. Now, the relations [stimulus"T1] and [T1..."...T4] are semiotic. They are meaning relations. But they are clearly not semantic. The stimulus has no semantics and T1, T2, T3 and T4 (more strictly, the LoT formulae in terms of which T1…T4 are couched) are semantically unrelated. The point of this illustration has been to show that even - in fact especially - in the case of what does have semantic/content (namely thoughts and only thoughts) and ‘has’ meaning, meaning and semantics are distinct. As an aside, it’s reasonable to ask what kind of semiotic relation holds between those thoughts of Susan’s. Since it involves neither convention nor semiotic intention, it is clearly not symbolic (not nn), not representational. Although we’re dealing with an agent, S, the relevant causations of thought are not agentive. So it seems it must be indexical (natural). I reconcile myself to this conclusion as follows. We saw, with our examples of natural (indexical) signs, that their status as signs depends on a given subjective background. The same holds in the above illustration. The difference is that our original examples were assessed against subjective backgrounds assumed to be shared as (supra-personal) ‘general knowledge’ and taken for granted as such, whereas in the illustration the background (CS) is personal, with no claim to be ‘general knowledge’. Here what counts as ‘general knowledge’ is irrelevant. What’s relevant is Susan’s pre-existing personal projects/preoccupations. Although we, as ‘observers’ of Susan, won’t take CS for granted, Susan does - necessarily, it being her own current state of mind. This is not to say that relevant aspects of CS can’t be shared. John may have developed some appreciation of those aspects of CS. They may be mutually manifest to Susan and John given previous conversation between them. In which case, John may have left the pile of washing in a prominent place in the kitchen ostensively, i.e. with the (semiotic, communicative) intention of leading Susan to have T2 and perhaps intending her further to derive T3 and T4. Given CS, Susan may derive those thoughts whether or not she recognises John’s intentions. However, following an account by Susan of her preoccupations, John might instead utter “I’ve done the washing”. The meaning ‘of’ that utterance/stimulus ‘lies in’ the semantic content of S’s thought T2 (actually it lies in U"T2.) In that case, if Susan recognises his intention, John might be said to have conversationally implicated T3 and T4.

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And, considered as a relation, conversational implicature is clearly a meaning relation (i.e. a semiotic relation) but, equally clearly, it is not a semantic relation. Incidentally, John might instead march proudly in with the clean washing and simply utter “Done!” with the same effect. Consider also “Kitchen?” in the context of a burning smell or “I’ve lost my keys!” Pace Fodor, you don’t need ‘sentences’ (Stainton 2006). The relevance of non-sentential utterances to my general theme is that ‘Logical Form’ as a semantic level of linguistic representation cannot play a (bottom-up) part in their interpretation, since it seems to me that you could only know which LF to assign to them in the light of the thought you take to have been (intended to be) communicated by them (i.e. top-down). This makes LF as a level of linguistic representation post hoc and thus redundant in utterance processing. Conclusion I have made a case for thinking of meaning as a relation, entirely extrinsic to the terms related in it. It is a cognitive, semiotic, antisymmetric relation from something (potentially anything a subject is aware of, be it an external phenomenon or a thought) to semantic content. Semantic content is of-and-only-of thoughts, couched in an internal ‘language of thought’. As a relation having semantics as one of it terms, meaning is to be distinguished from (though necessarily related to) semantics. Linguistic expressions, on these terms, can be said to ‘have meaning’ without being attributed semantic properties (including ‘LF’ properties). But even that is not quite right, I argued, because linguistic expressions only make for the possibility of meaning and do so only in a given I-language (not in any supposedly objective public language). Actual meaning is personal (neither sub-personal nor supra-personal), specific to the occasion/context of utterance. The scope of pragmatics (contextual inference in interpretation) thus extends into what is often taken to be ‘linguistic semantics’ and decoding. References Brody, M. (1995). Lexico-logical form. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Burton-Roberts, N. (1994). Ambiguity, sentence and utterance. Transactions of the Philological Society 92, 179-212. Burton-Roberts, N. (2000). Where and what is phonology? A representational approach. In Phonological knowledge. In Burton-Roberts, N. et al (eds.), 39-66. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burton-Roberts, N. (2005). Robyn Carston on semantics, pragmatics and ‘encoding’. (Review of Carston 2002). Journal of Linguistics 41, 389-407. Burton-Roberts, N. (2007). Varieties of semantics and encoding: negation, narrowing and numericals. In Burton-Roberts, N. (ed.), Pragmatics, 90-114. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Burton-Roberts, N. (2011). On the grounding of syntax and the role of phonology in human cognition. Lingua 121:14, 2089-2102. Burton-Roberts, N. & Poole, G. (2006).!‘Virtual conceptual necessity’, feature dissociation and the Saussurean legacy in generative grammar. Journal of Linguistics 42, 575-628. Carston, R. (2002). Thoughts and utterances. Oxford: Blackwell. Carston, R. (2004). Explicature and semantics. In Davis, S. & Gillon, B. (eds.), Semantics: a reader, 817-845. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapman, S. (2005).!Paul Grice: philosopher and linguist. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of language. New York: Praeger.

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Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. (2000a). Language and interpretation. In Smith, V. (ed.), New horizons in the study of language and mind. 46-74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chomsky, N. (2000b). The architecture of language. Oxford/New Delhi: Oxford University Press.!! Chomsky, N. (2004). Beyond explanatory adequacy. In Belletti, A. (ed.), Structures and beyond: the cartography of syntactic structures, Volume 3, 104-131. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chomsky, N. (2006). Approaching UG from below. Ms, MIT. (Appeared (2007) in Sauerland, U. and Gartner, H-M (eds.), Chomsky’s minimalism and the view from syntax-semantics, 1-29. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Davidson, D. (1986). A fine derangement of epitaphs. In Lepore, E. (ed.) Truth and interpretation: perspectives on the philosophy of Donald Davidson, 433-46. Oxford: Blackwell. Fodor, J. (1975). The language of thought. New York: Crowell. Fodor, J. (1983). Modularity of mind. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. !! Fodor, J. (1998). Concepts: where cognitive science went wrong. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fodor, J. (2008). LOT2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grice, H. P.(1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Larsen, R. & Segal, G. (1995). Knowledge of meaning. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Pateman, T. (1987).!Language in mind and language in society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peirce, C. S. (1933). Collected papers. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Recanati, F. (1998). Pragmatics. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Vol 7, 620-633. London: Routledge. Saussure, F de. (1974). Course in general linguistics. Translated from the French by Wade Baskin. Revised edition. Fontana books. Searle, J. (1983). Intentionality: an essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1986/1995). Relevance: communication and cognition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1998). The mapping between the mental and the public lexicon. In Carruthers, P & Boucher, J. (eds.), Language and thought: interdisciplinary themes, 184-200.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stainton, R. (2006). Words and thoughts: subsentences, ellipsis, and the philosophy of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wedgwood, D. (2007). Shared assumptions: semantic minimalism and relevance theory. Journal of Linguistics 43, 647-681.
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Noel Burton-Roberts School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics Percy Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom [email protected]
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FREE CHOICE NINGUN IN EARLY NAVARRO-ARAGONESE* GEOFFREY POOLE (Newcastle University) Abstract The indefinite adjective ningún (in its various forms), while often translated in isolation as ‘no’, is standardly assumed to be a polarity item in early medieval Spanish (Martins 2008, Poole 2011). However, in the Fueros de la Novenera, a 12th century charter written in a very early variety of Navarro-Aragonese, ningún has a broader distribution which includes both polarity and free choice contexts, similar to the distribution of English any. I suggest that ningún in the Fueros de la Novenera can be accounted for in terms of Giannakidou & Quer’s (2012) analysis of any, in which any is a single lexical item and an existential, rather than universal, quantifier. Under their analysis, the dual behavior seen with any (free choice vs. negative polarity item) arises because any conversationally implicates exhaustive variation, which creates a universal-like interpretation. However, where the implicature is cancelled (for example under negation and in questions), it behaves as a negative polarity item. Ningún in Navarro-Aragonese does however eventually develop into a ‘standard’ Old Spanish polarity item, and I suggest that this is consistent with other diachronic and acquisition hypotheses regarding polarity items. 1. Ningún in the Fueros de la Novenera: Descriptive Remarks The Fueros de la Novenera is a charter from the 12th century granted to a group of four towns which lie 30-50 kilometres to the south of Pamplona, the capital of the former Kingdom of Navarra, in the north-east of the Iberian peninsula. The name of the charter derives from the fact that these towns were exempted from the novena, a one-ninth tax on income. In his edition of the Fueros de la Novenera, Tilander (1951: 13) notes that the Fueros ‘are very archaic in character, just as much with respect to language as to legal underpinnings’.1 With respect to archaic legal practices, the Fueros allow for the use of ‘the candle ordeal’ as a legally binding method for settling certain disputes, as well as holding animals and even inanimate objects liable for homicide.2 As for the language of the Fueros, they are written in a very early form of Navarro-Aragonese, a variety of Old Romance spoken in the kingdom of Navarra and the neighbouring kingdom of Aragón. Ningún in this variety, while exhibiting the NPI behaviour seen in other early Medieval Spanish varieties, has a broader distribution, more akin to English free choice any than a ‘mere’ NPI.3
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" Thanks to Noel Burton-Roberts, Maria Maza, an anonymous reviewer and especially Ian Mackenzie for much helpful discussion. Any remaining errors are of course my own. " 1 ‘Los Fueros de la Novenera son de índole muy arcaica tanto por lo que se refiere a la lengua como al fondo jurídico.’ 2 In the candle ritual, common in many cultures worldwide, the two parties gather with witnesses in a sacred place to call upon the adjudication of a supernatural entity. Two identical candles are lit at exactly the same moment, and the supernatural entity in question is deemed to have sided with the party whose candle stays lit for longer. 3 I concentrate here on the NPI behaviour of ningún and put aside the question of whether it could also function as a modal polarity item during the early Medieval period, as, in fact, it has no impact on the discussion. (The modal contexts to be discussed in Section 1.2 below are ones in which ningún could not take on a positive, indefinite value in other early Medieval Spanish varieties (but see footnote 6 for some additional discussion).)

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1.1. Ningún as a negative polarity item Following various authors, including Martins (2000, 2008) and Poole (2011), I assume that ningún was in general a negative polarity item during the early Medieval Spanish period. It is licensed within both the direct scope of negation and other negative expressions such as the preposition sin ‘without’, as illustrated in (1)-(3).4 (1) & entraron dentro & no hallaron ningun hombre and entered.IND inside and NEG found.IND n-one man ‘And they went inside and found nobody.’ (Gran Conquista de Ultramar, 13th c.) Don aluar hannez non erraria en ninguna manera en las conosçer D. A. H. NEG err.COND in n-one manner in them know.INF ‘Don Alvar Hannez would not err in any way by knowing them.’ (Conde Lucanor, 14th c.) E asi estouieron toda la noche sin comer & sin ninguna consolacion And thus were.IND all the night without eat.INF and without n-one consolation ‘And they were like that the whole night, without eating and with no consolation’ (Meditations of Pseudo-Augustine, 15th c.)

(2)

(3)

Crucially, however, ningún is also commonly found as a subject when the verb is negated. (4) …un mes qual el escogiesse que ningun omne non vendiesse vino… a month which he chose.SBJV that n-one man NEG sold.SBJV wine ‘…a month which he chose in which no one could sell wine…’ (Fuero Real, 13th c.)

Cases such (4) are taken to fall together with the cases in (1) and (2) under the assumption that sentential negation raises covertly from T to C, with the result that ningún as a subject is within the scope of negation at LF. This ‘classic’ NPI behavior illustrated in (1)-(3) above is also seen in the Fueros de la Novenera. (5) Nuylla muyller…no ha poder de…fer feyto ninguno

While some authors (e.g., Martins (2000, 2008); Camus (2006)) have claimed that n-words such as ningún were both negative and modal polarity items during this period, the data, at least for Old Spanish, are not entirely clear. Keniston (1937), the source of Martins’ data for Old Spanish, specifically restricts himself to describing 16th century Spanish, by which time, as Poole (2011) shows, ningún’s change from polarity item to negative concord item was already underway. Additionally, a search of the Corpus del Español finds only a handful of examples of n-words with a positive indefinite value outside the scope of negation in unquestionably modal contexts (particularly questions and conditionals) prior to the 15th century. (Some of the other ‘modal’ contexts mentioned by, e.g., Martins (2000: 195), such as the scope of words expressing prohibition or comparative and before-clauses, are possibly covertly negative.) N-words prior to the 15th century do otherwise behave as negative polarity items (as opposed to negative concord elements) in all relevant varieties. See Poole (2011) for further discussion. 4 Unless otherwise indicated, all examples from the Fueros de la Novenera (FdN) are taken from Tilander (1951), cited by article, while all other unattributed examples from Medieval Spanish are from the Corpus del Español (Davies 2002-).

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N-one woman NEG has.IND power of do.INF business n-one amenos de su marido without her husband ‘No woman has the authority to conduct any business without her husband’ (FdN, § 197) (6) non deue ser peynndrado por deuda ninguna NEG must.IND be pledged for debt n-one ‘[An ill person] may not have security taken for any debt’ (FdN, § 135) (7) …et deuen lo prender los mayorales sines armas ningunas et and must.IND him seize.INF the officials without arms n-ones and sines fuerça ninguna… without force n-one ‘And the officials must arrest him without any weapons or any force….’ (FdN, § 99) The Fueros de la Novenera also contains examples parallel with (4) above, in which ningún (or a variant n-word nuill/nuyll5) can serve as a subject of a negated verb. (8) Et otrosi uezino ninguno non deue cuyllir mancebo ninguno de su uezino And further neighbor n-one NEG must.IND trap boy n-one of his neighbor ‘And furthermore no neighbor may hire away a servant from his neighbor’ (FdN, § 145)

1.2. ‘Free choice’ ningún However, the behaviour of ningún (or nuill/nuyll) in the Fueros de la Novenera differs from other varieties of early medieval Spanish in a number of (related) respects. It is licensed in all the contexts discussed in the previous section, but can additionally be used more broadly in certain (non-negative) free choice contexts. In particular, it can take on a positive indefinite value when it is the subject of a non-negated generic or deontic modal verb, and, as indicated by the translations, appears to have a free-choice interpretation. (9) Ninguna muiller que sea uidua & que se case antes de n-one woman that is.SBJV widow and that SE marries.SBJV before of un aynno complido deue .v. sueldos de calonia. a year completed owes.IND 5 sueldos of penalty ‘Any woman who is widowed and who (re)marries before one year has passed owes a fine of 5 sueldos.’ (FdN, § 13) Nuill ombre qui furta aradro aylleno a su uezino peyte .lx. sueldos. n-one man who steals.IND plow another’s to his neighbour pays 60 sueldos ‘Any man who steals his neighbor’s plow pays 60 sueldos.’ (FdN, § 19)

(10)

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Though etymologically related to a different Latin word from ningún (NULLUS ‘none’, rather than NEC !NUS ‘not (even) one’) nuill/nuyll appears to have an identical distribution to ningún in the Fueros de la Novenera. See Tilander (1951: 26-27) for discussion and see also footnote 16.

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(11)

Ningun hombre qui peynndra carnero coyllundo deue dar n-one man who takes.IND ram uncastrated must.IND give.INF de calonia V sueldos of penalty 5 sueldos ‘Any man who takes an uncastrated ram must pay a fine of 5 sueldos.’ (FdN, § 17)

In (9)-(11), the subject NP is interpreted as ‘any’, but, unlike (4) above, the verb of which it is a subject, is crucially not negated. As mentioned above in footnote 3, although there have been some claims that ningún in ‘standard’ early medieval Spanish is a weak NPI, and therefore can appear in some contexts with a positive indefinite value without being in the direct scope of negation, contexts like (9)-(11) are not one of them.6 In these varieties, negation would be required in (9)-(11) in order to license the ‘any’ reading for ningún (in which case it would be ‘any…not’, and the examples would be assimilated to (4) above). The free choice interpretation of ningún/nuill in (9)-(11) is confirmed by a second, incomplete copy of the Fueros de la Novenera which exists as part of manuscript 13331 in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid. It contains only the first 79 articles of Fueros as an untitled appendix to the charters of Viguera and Val de Funes, and Hergueta (1900) dates this manuscript to the 15th century. Tilander (1951: 27) observes that, with only one exception (which, he notes, probably reflects the original), all of the instances of ningún/nuill hombre in contexts such as (9)-(11) have been replaced by todo hombre. Todo hombre is in fact found in a number of places in the A manuscript of the Fueros de la Novenera and is also, in the context of a law code or set of regulations, the expression that would be used in Modern Spanish. Leonetti (2009) notes, this ‘bare’ form of the universal quantifier is predominantly non-specific, and in distribution resembles a Free Choice Item.

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I know of only one counterexample to this claim in the literature. Camus (2006: (40a)) notes the example in (i). (i) Ninguno qui este nuestro fecho quisier crebrantar, aya la hira de Dios. n-one who this our deed wants.SBJV break.INF has.SBJV the anger of God ‘Anyone who wants to break our law earns God’s wrath.’

Camus (2006: 1181) refers to the context in (i) as ‘imperative modality’, and claims that this is a non-negative context in which ningún is licensed, but I have been able to find only one other example in the Corpus del Español (which from 1200-1400 contains 20 million words) outside the cases discussed here. Martins (2000: (52)) notes the superficially similar Old Galician-Leonese example in (ii). (ii) Que ningun omne que en suas heridades nin en seus omnes metir mano…que peyte mil that n-one man that in his properties nor in his men puts hand that pays thousand mors. e perda quanto ouuer mors. and loses as-much-as might-have ‘that any person who causes damange to his properties or his men…pay a thousand moravedis (unit of money) and lose everything he might have’

In this example ningún is in a topic phrase (as evidenced by the reduplicated complementizer preceding the finite verb peyte), and in at least one other variety (the later Navarro-Aragonese language of the Fuero General de Navarra discussed in Section 3) a ningún phrase can very occasionally be a topic even after it has ceased being licensed in the contexts in (9)-(11). Most importantly, however, as will be discussed below, seemingly no law charters contained in the Corpus del Español use ningún in this way in this context besides the Fueros de la Novenera, where it is extremely frequent. This suggests that this free choice use of ningúno was not more widely available.

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This unusual use of subject ningún/nuill in the Fueros de la Novenera is further highlighted by comparing the Fuero de la Novenera to a 13th century manuscript version of the Fuero General de Navarra in the Corpus del Español. In this charter, written in a slightly later variety of Navarro-Aragonese from approximately the same area, contexts such as those in (9)-(11) are never realized with non-negative ningún.7 (12), for example, contains ningun ombre as a subject, but the main verb is negated (and thus ningun ombre is within the scope of negation after T to C raising at LF). (12) Ningun omne non deue ser Rentado por traydor por que mate omne n-one man NEG must.IND be.INF produced by criminal because kill.IND man que aya de peychar homjçidio o callonya por fuerro de Nauarra that has.SBJV of pay.INF homicide fine or penalty by fuero of N ‘No man shall be considered a criminal because he kills a man; instead he has to pay the homicide fine or penalty according to the laws of Navarra.’ (Fuero General de Navarra, 13th c.) In (13), todo ombre is used, just as in the B manuscript of the Fueros de la Novenera.8 (13) Otrossi todo ombre que taiare uit o vimne aylleno deue pechar However all man who cut.SBJV vine or vinyard another’s must.IND pay.INF .v. sueldos de calonia por cada uit 5 sueldos of penalty for each vine ‘However, any man who damages another’s vines must pay a fine of 5 sueldos for each vine.’ (Fuero General de Navarra, Version B, 13th c.)

More commonly, however, a conditional with algún ‘some’ is used to introduce an article of the charter: (14) Si algun villano se quasare con alguna villana el [sic] vno de eilos if some commoner.M SE marry.IND with some commoner.F and one of them muere sin creaturas el que biuo finquare non deue tener la heredad dies.IND without children he who alive remain.IND NEG must.IND have the property del muerto of.the dead ‘If two commoners marry and one of them dies before there are any children, the survivor may not inherit the property of the deceased.’ (Fuero General de Navarra, Version B, 13th c.)

1.2.1. Ningún as a topic Another reason to believe that ningún in the Fueros de la Novenera must be more than a ‘mere’ NPI is the fact that NPs introduced by ningún can serve as a topic, as in (15).

7

Although the Corpus del Español does not explicitly indicate anything concerning the exact dates or locations of manuscripts which it contains, Version B, from the ADYMTE corpus, is indexed with the 13th century materials and is replete with characteristic Aragonisms (such as the third-person possessive pronoun lur (from Vulgar Latin *ILL!RUM, which existed alongside illorum (Umphrey 1913)) 8 Interestingly, qual quier ‘who-/whichever’, a very common free choice item in the 13th century, is not found either in the Fueros de la Novenera or the Fuero General de Navarra.

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(Note that contrary to superficial appearances, the verb ha in (15) is a variety of the impersonal verb hay ‘there is’, and therefore the NP is not the subject.) (15) Ningún hombre que plague a otro, si el plagado non se clama, n-one man who injures.SBJV a other if the injured NEG SE clamors no ha calonia. NEG there.is penalty ‘As for any man who injures another, if the injured party does not lodge a complaint, there is no penalty.’ (FdN, § 2)

In (16), the NP introduced by nuill introduces a large topic, which is then resumed by the indirect object pronoun le, suggesting very clearly that the NP is topical. (16) Nuill ombre que sea ferme a otro por heredat et niegue que n-one man that is.SBJV witness to other for property and denies.SBJV that no es ferme, pueden le dar candela. ‘NEG’ is witness, can.3p.IND to.him give.INF candle ‘With respect to any man who serves as a witness for another for [the purchase of] a piece of property and who later denies that he did so, they can subject him to the candle ordeal.’ (FdN, § 31)

This behaviour is unexpected given that, as noted by Giannakidou (2011: 1695) among others, negative polarity items are referentially deficient in an important way. They cannot introduce a new discourse referent and cannot assert existence in a default context. For this reason, it is generally assumed that NPIs cannot serve as topics, and therefore ningún/nuill must be more than a ‘mere’ NPI in (15) and (16). We return to this issue in Section 2.3 below, but notice that free choice items in a deontic modal, legal context such as (15) and (16) seem intuitively akin to generically interpreted bare plurals or universal quantifiers, both of which can serve as topics (see Kuno 1972 and Reinhart 1981 respectively, and Endriss 2009 for an overview). 1.3. Summary Despite the limited nature of the discourse contexts provided by a document such as a law charter, it seems clear that ningún/nuill has a broader distribution than it does in ‘standard’ early Medieval Spanish. Its positive, indefinite interpretation in the absence of any negative expression when the subject of a deontic modal or generic verb is not to be found even in later varieties of Navarro-Aragonese. The central challenge for a unified account of ningún in the language of the Fueros de la Novenera is then to explain how this element can function both in straightforward negative polarity and in free choice environments. 2. Giannakidou & Quer (2012) on English any In this section, I outline Giannakidou & Quer’s (2012) analysis of any in English, which seems to straddle the free choice and (negative) polarity divide in a similar way to ningún in the Fueros de la Novenera. Under Giannakidou & Quer’s analysis, the free choice and negative polarity natures of any receive a unified analysis within the context of a

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particular approach to polarity items and the free choice effect, and I argue that their approach to any can account for the behaviour of ningún in early Navarro-Aragonese. 2.1. The dual behaviour of English any As is well known, English any exhibits a cross-linguistically peculiar dual behaviour. On the one hand, it can have a ‘free choice’ interpretation in certain contexts, as evidenced by the grammaticality of almost, a traditional diagnostic for free choice (see, e.g., Giannakidou 2001 and the references cited there). (17) a. (Almost) anyone who wants to drive a truck must obtain a special license b. John will read his poetry to (almost) anyone However, any cannot be a ‘true’ free choice item, as it can be also found in contexts which are impossible for these elements; for example, within the direct scope of negation or within the scope of other negative elements in an episodic context. (18) a. John didn’t see (*almost) any of the people. b. Mary quit her job without (*almost) any notice. Since almost is impossible in (18a) and (b), we know that we are dealing with negative polarity any, as opposed to free choice any. Furthermore, as noted by Quer (1999) (cited in Giannakidou & Quer (2012)), a true Free Choice Item such as Spanish cualquier is ungrammatical in contexts like (17): (19) *Expulsaron del partido a cualquier disidente. Expelled.IND from.the party A FC dissident Intended: ‘*They expelled FC-any dissident from the party.’ (Modern Spanish; Quer 1999)

In other words, descriptively, the facts in (17) and (18) suggest that any in English is neither a ‘true’ free choice item nor a ‘true’ (negative) polarity item. 2.1.1. The quantificational status of any Contrasts such as the one between (17) and (18) have engendered a debate concerning the quantificational status of any. 9 Since Ladusaw (1980) and Carlson (1980), polarity any has been generally taken to be an existential quantifier. For example, in addition to the argument from almost-modification noted in (18) above, Carlson (1980) also notes other environments in which NPI any patterns with existential rather than universal quantifiers: (20) a. He has a little/some/*all/*every courage. b. He doesn’t have any courage. (21) a. We made a little/some/*all/*every headway. b. We didn’t make any headway.
9

Those who have taken the view that any is an existential quantifier include Kadmon & Landman (1993), Giannakidou (2001) and Horn (2005); while Davison (1980), Jayez & Tovena (2005) and Dayal (2005) among others claim that any is a universal quantifier.

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By contrast, free choice any seems more like a universal quantifier, particularly as the subject of a generic verb. For example, (22) seems effectively synonymous with either (23a) or (23b). (22) Any owl hunts mice.

(23) a. Every owl hunts mice. b. Owls hunt mice. One approach, the position dubbed ‘ambiguist’ by Horn (2000), would be to say that any in English is simply ambiguous between a universal quantifier, which appears in free choice contexts, and an existential quantifier, which is seen in the negative polarity contexts. However, even in addition to the general theoretical considerations which would favour a unified analysis of any over one that postulated ambiguity, Giannakidou & Quer note that free choice any is not limited to universal quantification. It can be interpreted as an existential quantifier under the influence of certain modal verbs. (24) a. They may have hired any candidate on the list. b. The committee can give the job to any candidate. This variation between universal and existential interpretations, even within the free choice uses of any, is in fact typical of indefinites. This is unsurprising, as they note, given that any is etymologically related to the indefinite article (both deriving from a reduced form of the adjective one). Therefore, Giannakidou & Quer (2012), following Giannakidou (2001) among others, argue that any most appropriately receives a unified analysis as an existential quantifier.10 2.2. Giannakidou & Quer on the Free Choice effect. Given that Giannakidou & Quer claim that any should be analysed across the board as an existential quantifier and not a universal one, sentences such as those in (17) and (22) now require explanation. Specifically, such an analysis requires an account of the source of the universal-like interpretation that any receives in ‘free choice’ contexts. According to Giannakidou & Quer, following Giannakidou (2001), the free choice effect seen with any (and with true free choice items more generally, which they claim are also existential quantifiers) is due to a lexical semantic effect of ‘domain exhaustification’. Domain exhaustification is defined such that, for each member of a domain d, there is a world w where some predicate is true of d (and also that in that world w there is no other element d! which satisfies the predicate, though this addition is required for technical reasons that do not concern us here). In other words, one exhausts all possible values in a domain (say, the possible referents of ‘any book’) individually across a range of closely related worlds in a pairwise fashion.11 This is a different interpretation from the one provided by universal quantification, which invites the hearer to compare every value with respect to a particular world. Free choice items and English any differ, however, in that true free choice items

10 11

They are thus ‘unitarians’ in the sense of Horn (2000). More specifically, worlds which are identical save for the different value chosen from the domain d.

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presuppose domain exhaustification, while English any merely conversationally implicates it.12 2.3. A unified analysis of free choice and polarity ningún Applying Giannakidou & Quer’s analysis to ningún in early Medieval Spanish, consider again example (11) (repeated below): (11) Ningun hombre qui peynndra carnero coyllundo deue dar n-one man who takes.IND ram uncastrated must.IND give.INF de calonia V sueldos of penalty 5 sueldos ‘Any man who takes an uncastrated ram must pay a fine of 5 sueldos.’ (FdN, § 17) Under the assumption that ningún/nuill in the Fueros de la Novenera functions like English any, it will be defined as follows (adapting and amalgamating Giannakidou & Quer’s (2012: (41) and (42)) definitions for any): (25) a. Ningún P is an extensional indefinite of the form P(x), where x is an individual variable. b. The x variable is dependent: it cannot be bound by a default existential, unless there is another nonveridical operator above the existential. If the nonveridical operator is a Q-operator, then the Q-operator binds the x variable, as is standardly the case with indefinites. (26) Domain exhaustification (conversationally implicated): If ningún is in the scope of an operator contributing a set of worlds W: !d" Dningun. #w.Q(d)(w) and no other member of the domain d' is such that Q(d')(w); where D is the domain the FCI [sic], and Q is the main VP predicate.

Furthermore, I assume the definition of must in (27), adapting von Fintel & Gillies (2007: (6)) as per their remarks: (27) must (B) (!) must (B) (!) is true in w iff ! is true in all worlds that are B-accessible from w B: the conversational background (in the sense of Kratzer), effectively a function from worlds to sets of worlds !: the prejacent proposition

Putting together the formal definitions in (25)-(27), we see that a deontic modal context such as that provided by deber ‘must’ is one in which an element such as ningún can be licensed. First, deontic modality provides the requisite non-veridical environment. (The claim ‘it is required or ought to be the case that p’ does not entail (or presuppose) the truth of p.) Deontic modality also provides a set of worlds over which ningún’s domain

12

This is because English any, like ningún in Navarro-Aragonese and unlike true Free Choice Items, is also licensed within the direct scope of negation, an environment in which conversational implicatures, but not presuppositions, are cancelled.

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exhaustification can be evaluated, and this set of worlds is universally quantified over.13 I therefore take the Logical Form of the sentence in (11) to be (28) (putting aside the precise question of how the relative clause is represented): (28) !w" " W-deo(w), x: [uncastrated-ram thief (x in w")] [pay (x, 5 sueldos, in w")]

The universal quantifier provided by the deontic modal binds the dependent variable introduced by the ningún-phrase, and (28) therefore is interpreted as meaning that, for every world w" which is a member of the set of deontically accessible worlds from our world w (that is, worlds where the laws are the same as this world) and where x is an uncastrated ram thief in w", x pays a fine of 5 sueldos in w". (11) further conversationally implicates that the domain of uncastrated ram thieves is exhausted pairwise with the deontic alternative worlds that we consider. This approach to ningún also explains other examples in the Fueros de la Novenera which have a free choice interpretation, but where, unlike (11) above, universal quantification is not a plausible alternative analysis. Consider (29)-(31): (29) Dos uandos que se mesclen nuyt nin dia et maten ombre ninguno. Two groups that refl mix.SBJV night nor day and kill.SBJV man n-one saquen omiziero et peyten homizidio al rey get.SBJV homicide and pay.SBJV homicide fine to.the king ‘Two groups of people who come to blows at any time and kill a man are guilty of homicide and pay the homicide fine to the king.’ (FdN, § 157) Todo ombre que aya baraylla un uezino con otro et all man that has.SBJV altercation a neighbor with another and uienen parientes en ualimiento con armas et muere hi come.IND relatives in aid with weapons and dies.IND there nuill ombre, todos deuen el homizidio…. n-one man everyone owes.IND the homicide fine ‘As for any man that has an altercation with his neighbour and relatives come in aid with weapons and a man is killed there, everyone owes the fine for homicide.’ (FdN, § 149) De hombre que furta ninguna bestia Of man that steals.IND n-one animal ‘Regarding a man who steals an animal’ (statue title) (FdN, § 14) As indicated by the translations, ningún in these contexts is clearly an indefinite, and under the proposed analysis the free choice effect comes about through the conversational implication of domain exhaustification. Notice that ningún is not plausibly interpreted as a universal quantifier in these cases. (29) does not restrict itself to a situation in which two groups of people fight and every man is killed. Rather, it intends to claim that, in every world which is deontically accessible from our own in which a man is killed as a result of an altercation between two groups of people, those people are collectively guilty of homicide
13

(30)

(31)

All of these statements are also true of generic contexts, and thus I assume that the analysis of (11) will carry over straightforwardly to examples such as (10) above.

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and pay the homicide fine. Similarly, (31) does not require that a man steal every animal in order to fall within the scope of the statute. Instead, the statute applies across pairs of deontically accessible worlds and stolen animals, and is relevant in every one of them. The conversational implicature of domain exhaustification also explains the ability of ningún/nuill to be used as a topic (discussed at the end of section 1.2.1 and also relevant for some of the examples directly above). According to Giannakidou & Quer’s definition of ningún in (25) above, in which the phrase ningún P introduces a dependent individual variable, it seems as though it is the sort of element which should not be able to be topical. This is made explicit by Giannakidou’s (2011: 1695) definition of ‘dependent existential’ (cf. the definition of ‘dependent variable’ (25b) above)): (32) An existential quantifier "xd is dependent iff the variable xd it contributes does not introduce a discourse referent in the main context.

However, I assume that the conversational implicature of domain exhaustification allows the ningún phrase to be interpreted as a kind or class, and therefore to have a referent which can be licensed as a topic. A ningún-phase in this sense becomes similar to a generic bare plural NP which, as noted by Kuno (1972) and Kuroda (1972) among others, can also be interpreted as a topic for this reason (again see Endriss 2009 for an overview). Having discussed the various ‘free choice’ uses of ningún, recall that ningún, like English any, can also be used in NPI environments, for example within the direct scope of negation, as in (5), repeated below. (5) Nuylla muyller…no ha poder de…fer feyto ninguno N-one woman NEG has.IND power of do.INF business n-one amenos de su marido without her husband ‘No woman has the authority to conduct any business without her husband’ (FdN, § 197)

(5) differs crucially from the previous cases discussed above because negation provides a non-quantificational non-veridical operator. As per the definition in (25b) above, this allows the dependent variable(s) introduced by the ningún phrase(s) to undergo existential closure. There is no domain exhaustification, since, following Gazdar (1979) and Horn (1991), conversational implicatures are cancelled in negative contexts. As such then, (5) merely claims that it is not the case that there exists a woman x and a business transaction y such that x has the power to conduct y without her husband’s approval. 3. Ningún in later Navarro-Aragonese The development of ningún in western varieties of Navarro-Aragonese can be traced through the next centuries by examining two other early charters, the Pamplona manuscript of the Fuero de Jaca (manuscript D of Molho 1964) and Version B of the Fuero General de Navarra found in the Corpus del Español.14 Jaca was the early administrative center of the kingdom of Aragón, and its charter dates from the end of the 11th century. Although originally promulgated in Latin, Manuscript D of Molho’s (1964) critical edition of the Fuero de Jaca is a translation into Navarro-Aragonese done in Navarra around 1340. By contrast, the Fuero General de Navarra was originally composed in Navarro-Aragonese, and
14

All examples in this section from the Fuero de Jaca are taken from Molho (1964), cited by article.

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promulgated initially in 1247. As noted in footnote 6 above, Version B from the Corpus del Español seems to originate from an approximately contemporaneous period and region. Consideration of these two charters suggests that, by the early 14th century at the latest, Navarro-Aragonese had developed into a ‘standard’ old Romance variety. Ningún is, as expected, licensed within the scope of negation (again requiring main clause negation when in subject position) (33) Ningun omne non deue ser Rentado por traydor por que mate omne n-one man eng must.IND be.INF produced by criminal because kill.IND man que aya de peychar homjçidio o callonya por fuerro de Nauarra that has.SBJV of pay.INF homicide fine or penalty by fuero of N ‘No man shall be tried as a criminal because he kills a man; instead he has to pay the homicide fine or penalty according to the laws of Navarra.’ (Fuero General de Navarra, 13th c.) Mas si por auentura lo troba muerto, d'ailli adelant non lo puede cobrar but if by chance him finds.IND dead from.there forward NEG him can.IND charge por njnguna razon. by n-one reason ‘But if by chance he finds him dead, from then on he cannot charge him for any reason.’ (Fuero de Jaca ms. D, §134)

(34)

Also, as expected from the general discussion in Section 1, ningún in later NavarroAragonese is also licensed when in the scope of other negative elements, such as the preposition sin ‘without’ (35) De omne que todo se dona a religion o a glesia a todo quanto que a / of man that all SE gives.IND to religion or to church to all how.much that has.IND sen nengun retenimiento & d[e]spues muere, without n-one withholding and later dies.IND ‘As for a man that gives everything he has to a religious group or church without any withholding and later dies….’ (Fuero de Jaca ms. D, §148) & puede pacer en el prado. o enla defesa sin calonia ninguna and can.IND graze in the meadow or in.the pasturage without penalty n-one ‘And it can graze in the meadow or in the pasturage without any fine.’ (Fuero General de Navarra, 13th c.)

(36)

However, no examples with ningún as a subject in a deontic modal or generic nonnegative context, corresponding to (9)-(11) above, are to be found in either document.15 This can be accounted for under the assumption that in later Navarro-Aragonese the implicature of domain exhaustification is lost. Essentially, ningún is reanalysed as a ‘mere’ NPI, a
15

While this is true, it should be noted that a handful of examples can be found in the Fuero General de Navarra in which a ningún phrase is a topic, similar to examples (15) and (16) above. This could be because ningún has not entirely completed the transition to a simple polarity item. An alternative possibility is that the explanation for ningún’s use as a topic both in the Fueros de la Novenera and in the Fuero General de Navarra lies in the fact that a ningún-phrase can refer to the set that the phrase picks out, in which case, following Reinhart 1981, it can be interpreted as a topic.

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‘referentially vague indefinite’ in Giannakidou & Quer’s terms, in which case it is analysed as per the discussion of example (5) in the previous section. Proceeding in parallel with the loss of the free choice use of ningún is the increasing use of various alternatives for expressing free choice which existed alongside ningún. In particular, as mentioned in Section 1.2 above, the ‘bare’ quantifier todo/toda exists alongside free choice ningún in the A manuscript of the Fueros de la Novenera, as illustrated by (37), or by example (30) above. (37) Todo ombre que uenda heredat que sea de patrimonio, debe lo fer all man that sells.SBJV property that is.SBJV of inheritence must.INF it make.INF saber con dos ombres a sus hermanos, si los ha…. know.INF with two men to his brothers if them has.IND ‘Any man who sells an inherited piece of property must make it known with two men to his siblings, if he has them….’ (FdN, § 39)

Ningún N as the subject of a statute occurs approximately twice as frequently as todo N in the Fueros de la Novenera. However, while the Fuero General de Navarra contains 68 instances of a punctuation mark (including & or a statute boundary) followed by todo N, there are no instances of ningún N. 3.1. A note on the diachronic trajectory of polarity items Martins (2000; 2008) suggests that polarity items in Romance follow a general trend towards decreasing underspecification within a unary-valued system of features (Rooryck (1994)) located in the Polarity Phrase (PolP). The change, for example, from ‘standard’ Old Spanish n-words (which are negative polarity items) to Modern Spanish n-words (which are negative concord items) involves a change from a variably underspecified [#] negative feature to a specified negative feature [+]. In other words, these elements move from being anti-licensed in affirmative contexts to being positively licensed in negative contexts. Since, as discussed in footnote 3 above, I put aside the question of whether ‘standard’ Old Spanish ningún was a modal polarity item in addition to a negative polarity item, I do not take any position on the relationship between the technical details of her proposal and the development of ningún in early Navarro-Aragonese discussed here. However, the change does seem to be consonant with the spirit of her proposal. In describing the proposed trend of polarity items in Romance, Martins, for example, uses the phrase ‘becoming more restrictive in their licensing contexts’ (2000: 206) as equivalent way of saying ‘reducing the degree of underspecification’. The former certainly describes the development of ningún. The loss of its implicature of domain exhaustification means that it is licensed in a subset of the environments that it was licensed in previously (i.e., from free choice contexts and NPI contexts to simply NPI contexts).16 Furthermore, the development seen in early Navarro-Aragonese would seem to be entirely consistent with the acquisition findings of van der Wal (1996), which Martins (2008) cites as evidence for the general thrust of her proposal. In a study of the acquisition of Dutch weak polarity items by first-language learners, van der Wal observes that the first context which children acquire for these items is the negative one. It is only later in the acquisition
16

I put aside here the question of how ningún/nuill itself became licensed in free choice contexts. It is a somewhat surprising development given that both elements are etymologically related to negative elements in Latin (NEC !NUS ‘not (even) one’ and NULLUS ‘no/none’, respectively). Unfortunately however, it may be that the lack of sufficiently early Old Spanish texts will make even speculation about this question impossible.

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process that the non-negative modal contexts are acquired. If the negative polar environment is generally perceived by learners as most salient for elements which are licensed there, then the direction of the change seen with ningún in Navarro-Aragonese would be expected. This would also explain the cross-linguistic trend for indefinites to become ‘more negative’ (see, e.g, Haspelmath 1997 and Roberts & Roussou 2003 for discussion). 4. Conclusion This paper has examined ningún in early Navarro-Aragonese, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. The archaic use of ningún, as exemplified by the manuscript version of the Fueros de la Novenera in Tilander (1951), straddles the free choice/polarity divide, in a manner similar to English any (which is well-known for being cross-linguistically unusual). It is particularly unusual in the context of the history of early Medieval Spanish polarity items, as ningún does not generally exhibit this behaviour in equivalent contexts in other early medieval Spanish varieties. I suggested that the behaviour of ningún in the Fueros de la Novenera provides indirect support for the analysis of English any in Giannakidou & Quer (2012), in that its properties seem amenable to a similar analysis. Ningún is an existential, rather than a universal, quantifier and the free choice effect is the result of a lexical semantic property of ningún by which it conversationally implicates domain exhaustification. Diachronically, ningún in later Navarro-Aragonese appears to develop into a ‘standard’ early Medieval Spanish (negative) polarity item, losing the ability to serve as the subject of a non-negated generic or deontic modal verb, and this change appears to be broadly consonant with the diachronic developments of other polarity items crosslinguistically. References Camus Bergareche, B. (2006) La expressión de la negación. In C. Company Company (ed.), Sintaxis histórica de la lengua española. Parte I: La frase verbal, 1165-1252. México: FCE, UNAM. Carlson, G. (1980). Polarity any is existential. Linguistic Inquiry 11, 779-804. Davies, M. (2002-). Corpus del Español (100 million words, 1200s-1900s). Available online at http://www.corpusdelespanol.org Davison, A. (1980). Any as universal or existential? In Van Der Auwera, J. (ed.), The Semantics of Determiners, 11-40. London: Croom Helm. Dayal, V. (2005). The universal force of free choice any. In Rooryck, J & Van Craenenbroeck, J. (eds), Linguistic Variation Yearbook 2004, 5-40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Endriss, C. (2009). Quantificational topics. A scopal treatment of exceptional wide scope phenomena. New York: Springer. von Fintel, K. & Gillies, A. (2007). An opinionated guide to epistemic modality. In Gendler, T. & Hawthorne, J. (eds.), Oxford studies in epistemology, vol. 2, 32–62. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gazdar, G. (1979). Pragmatics: implicature, presupposition, and logical form. New York: Academic Press. Giannakidou, A. (2001). The meaning of free choice. Linguistics and Philosophy 24, 659735. Giannakidou, A. (2011). Negative polarity and positive polarity: licensing, variation, and compostionality. In von Heusinger, K., Maienborn, C. & Portner, P. (ed.), The

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Handbook of Natural Language Meaning (second edition), 1660-1712. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin. Giannakidou, A. & Quer, J. (2012) Exhaustive and non-exhaustive variation with antispecific indefinites: free choice versus referential vagueness in Greek, Catalan, and Spanish, ms., University of Chicago/ICREA and Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Haspelmath, M. (1997). Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hergueta, N. (1900). Fueros inéditos de Viguera y de Val de Funes, otorgados por D. Alfonso el Batallador. Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 37, 368-430. [Digital edition (2006). Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Available at http://bib.cervantesvirtual.com/FichaObra.html?Ref=017765 [consulted 4/12/12]] Horn, L. (1991). Duplex negatio affirmat...: the economy of double negation. In Dobrin, L. et al., eds., CLS 27, Part Two: The Parasession on Negation, 80-106. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Horn, L. (2000). Any and (-)ever: free choice and free relatives. In Wyner, A. (ed.), Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference of the Israeli Association for Theoretical Linguistics, 71–111.
Horn, L. (2005). Airport '86 revisited: toward a unified indefinite any. In Carlson, G. and Pelletier, F. (eds.), The Partee Effect, 179-205. Stanford: CSLI. Jacques J. & Tovena, L. (2005). Free choiceness and non-individuation. Linguistics and Philosophy 28, 1–71. Kadmon, N. & Landman, F. (1993). ‘Any’. Linguistics and Philosophy 16, 353-422. Keniston, H. (1937). The syntax of Castillian prose: the sixteenth century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Kuno, S. (1972). Functional sentence perspective: a case study from Japanese and English. Linguistic Inquiry 3, 269-320. Kuroda, S.-Y. (1972). The categorical and the thetic judgement: evidence from Japanese syntax. Foundations of Language 9, 153–185. Ladusaw, W. (1980). Polarity sensitivity as inherent scope relations. New York: Garland. Leonetti, M. (2009). Remarks on focus and non-specificity. In Espinal, M. et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the IV Nereus International Workshop ‘Definiteness and DP Structure in Romance Languages’. Konstanz: Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Konstanz. Martins, A. (2000). Polarity Items in Romance: Underspecification and Lexical Change. In Pintzuk, S. et al. (eds), Diachronic Syntax: Models and Mechanisms, 191-219. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martins, A. (2008). Investigating language change in a comparative setting. In Almeida, M., Sieberg, B. & Bernardo, A. (eds.), Questions on Language Change. Lisbon: Colibri/Centro de Estudos Alemães e Europeus. 99-116. Molho, M. (1964). El Fuero de Jaca. Edición critica. Zaragoza: Escuela de Estudios Medievales/Instituto de Estudios Pirenaicos. [facsimile available online at http://www.derechoaragones.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=3&path=10 1595] Poole, G. (2011). Focus and the development of n-words in Spanish. In Berns, J. et al. (eds.), Romance Language and Linguistic Theory 2009, 291-303. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Quer, J. (1999). The quantificational force of free choice items. Paper presented at Colloque de Syntaxe et Semanique de Paris ’99. Reinhart, T. (1981). Pragmatics and linguistics: an analysis of sentence topics. Linguistica 27, 5394. Roberts, I. & Roussou, A. (2003). Syntactic change. A minimalist approach to grammaticalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Rooryck, J. (1994). On two types of underspecification: towards a theory shared by syntax and phonology. Probus 6, 207-233.

Tilander, G. (1951). Los Fueros de la Novenera. Stockholm : Leges Hispanicae Medii Aevi, II. [facsimilie available online at http://www.derechoaragones.es/i18n/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?path=101969] Umphrey, G. W. (1913). The aragonese dialect. Bulletin of the University of Washington, University Studies 5. Seattle: Washington. [facsimile available online at http://archive.org/details/aragonesedialect00umphuoft]
van der Wal, S. (1996). Negative Polarity Items & Negation: Tandem Acquisition. Groningen Dissertations in Linguistics 17.

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Geoffrey Poole School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics Percy Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom [email protected]

! LONG-DISTANCE A-MOVEMENT AND INTRODUCING EXTERNAL ARGUMENTS: PROBLEMS POSED BY THE BEI-CONSTRUCTION IN MANDARIN* ALISON BIGGS (University Of Cambridge) Abstract The Mandarin bei-construction is traditionally identified as the Mandarin passive, although more recently it has been described as a ‘non-canonical’ passive (Liu 2012, Huang 2013). One property of the bei-construction non-canonical of passives is the possibility of a longdistance dependency between the surface subject (the derived subject) and its gap. A second non-canonical property is that where the agent is overt, it does not show properties consistent with demotion. The first part of the paper examines the availability of the long-distance dependency. Although in many respects unlike canonical passive constructions, Section 2 shows that a range of properties – including reconstruction and sensitivity to particular verb classes – indicate that the bei-construction involves A-movement; this contrasts with most studies, which derives the long-distance construction via operator movement. The long-distance dependency itself is found to be possible with only (certain) ditransitives, and object control verbs. Section 3 proposes a structure of Mandarin ditransitives and object control verbs, and from this a derivation of the long-distance bei-construction is sketched, that obviates any potential intervention effects. According to this analysis, the availability (or not) of longdistance movement in the long and short bei-construction does not follow from any particular property of the bei-construction itself, but follows from independent properties of its complement. The second part of the paper examines the status of the agent of the bei construction in more detail. The core proposal is that the agent of the bei-construction – and external arguments in Mandarin more generally – are not introduced via Voice; this is possible in Mandarin, but not in English, because in Mandarin the External Argument can be introduced by a range of lexical heads. Instead, I suggest that VoiceP of the bei-construction obligatorily selects a CausativeP as its complement, and that the agent (the external argument) is introduced in its specifier. 1. Introduction In the Mandarin bei-construction, the Internal Argument of the lexical verb occurs obligatorily preposed in sentence-initial position. This NP is followed by the morpheme bei.1

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* The research reported here was funded by the European Research Council Advanced Grant No. 269752 “Rethinking Comparative Syntax”. Many thanks to my informants (all mainland speakers of Mandarin), and for comments and questions from Theresa Biberauer, Lisa Cheng, Anders Holmberg, Adam Ledgeway, Ian Roberts, Michelle Sheehan, Joel Wallenberg, Norman Yeo, the audiences of the 7th Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics, the LAGB 2012, SLE 45. Comments from Freddy Xuhui Hu and from an anonymous reviewer have been particularly helpful. Any remaining errors are my own. 1 The co-verbs jiao, derived from the lexical verb ‘call’, rang derived from ‘let/allow’, and gei derived from ‘give’, are interchangeable with bei (in the long construction) in formal styles. A co-verb is the traditional Chinese grammar term for functional elements that semantically resemble prepositions, but which distribute more closely with verbs (from which they derive diachronically).

!

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In a ‘long’ bei-construction the agent is overt (3), but in a ‘short’ bei-construction the agent is not overt (2).2 (1) Wo pian le ta. I cheat ASP he3 ‘I cheated him.’ Ta bei pian le. He BEI cheat ASP ‘He was cheated.’ Ta bei wo pian le. He BEI I cheat ASP ‘He was cheated by me.’ (active clause in canonical SVO order)

(2)

(the short bei-construction)

(3)

(the long bei-construction)

The bei-construction functions to foreground an internal argument by ‘promoting’ it to the canonical subject position. It is for this reason that it is typically classed as a passive (Huang 1999, Huang, Li & Li 2009, Keenan & Dryer 2007), or more recently as a ‘noncanonical’ passive (Liu 2012, Huang 2013). However, it is not clear that (3) involves syntactic ‘demotion’ of the agentive argument to an oblique, as is required in its English translation (the relevant diagnostics for subjecthood of the agent are left aside for reasons of space here, but will be discussed in full in Section 4). In the spirit of much previous work (Keenan 1985, Baker, Johnson & Roberts 1989, Keenan & Dryer 2007, Bruening & Tranh 2012) I take the demotion or “suppression” of the agent to be a defining taxonomic property of passivisation; here, the neutral term ‘bei-construction’ is adopted. In addition to non-demotion of the agent, a second property of the bei-construction non-canonical of passivisation is the possibility of a long-distance relationship between the surface subject and its gap:4 (4) Nei feng xin bei wo jiao Lisi qing Wangwu tuo ta meimei ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I tell Lisi ask Wangwu request his sister send ASP Lit: ‘That letter was told-Lisi-to-ask-Wangwu-to-have-his-sister-send by me.’ (‘That letter was such that I told Lisi to ask Wangwu to have his sister send [it].’) Zhangsan bei Lisi pai jingcha zhua-zou le. Zhangsan BEI Lisi send police arrest-go ASP Lit: ‘Zhangsan was sent-the-police-to-arrest by Lisi.’ (‘Zhangsan was such that Lisi sent the police to arrest [him].’) (Huang et al. 2009:125) The sensitivity of long-distance bei-constructions to islands (6) and their compatibility with resumptive pronouns (7), as well as simply the existence of the long-distance !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2

(5)

I assume that the non-overt agent in the short bei-construction is syntactically present. The issue is tangential to the issues under discussion here. 3 Non-Leipzig glossing: ASP ‘aspect marker’, BA ‘object marker’, BEI ‘bei-construction’, DE ‘modification marker’ 4 It is claimed that the short bei-construction (the agentless bei-construction) does not permit long-distance dependencies (Huang 1999, Ting 1998, etc.), although Her (2009) and Bruening & Tranh (2012) argue that longdistance dependencies with the short bei-construction are possible. The analysis presented here does not force a correlation between a long-distance dependency and an overt agent. Whether this is correct is an empirical question.

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relationship across intervening arguments (4)-(5), are all taken as indicative that the initial-XP is related to its gap via A’-movement. (6) Zhangsan bei wo tongzhi Lisi ba zanmei *(ta) de shu dou mai zou le. Zhangsan BEI I inform Lisi BA praise *(him) DE book all buy away ASP Lit: ‘Zhangsan was informed-Lisi-to-buy-up-all-the-books-that-praise-[him] by me.’ (‘Zhangsan was such that I informed Lisi to buy up all the books that praise him.’) (?)Zhangsani bei ren da le tai Zhangsan BEI person hit ASP he ‘Zhangsan was hit once by someone.’ yi-xia.5 once (Huang et al. 2009: 127) Section 2 presents data suggesting that the long-distance bei-construction in fact involves A-movement; some of the previous relevant literature is reviewed in order to place this claim in context. However, a derivation via A-movement should be ruled out under any standard theory of locality: the observed (long-distance) movement is apparently insensitive to intervening arguments, which is highly uncharacteristic of A-movement. Yet the occurrence of the bei-construction is far more limited than has previously been noted. I suggest that in fact, long-distance A-movement only escapes intervention effects in the context of certain ditransitive structures and object control predicates. As a result, the availability (or not) of long-distance A-movement does not follow from any particular property of the bei-construction itself, but follows from independent properties of its complement. Section 3 introduces the structure of double object constructions and object control predicates in Mandarin, which allows for an A-movement derivation of the beiconstruction that obviates intervention effects. Section 4 examines a second unusual property associated with the Mandarin long bei-construction: the locus of the introduction of the agent. There is significant evidence to suggest that the agent is not introduced in a VoiceP (the locus often cited for English; see, e.g. Kratzer 1996). Instead, the agent appears to be associated with a CauseP, a functional projection below VoiceP. I propose that it is the lack of association between the agent (the external argument) and Voice that means that the agent of the bei-construction does not undergo demotion. Section 5 concludes. 2. Evidence for A-movement in the bei-construction 2.1. Previous accounts The long-distance long bei-construction is traditionally taken to involve complex predication, derivationally resembling the Chomsky (1977, 1981) account of English toughconstructions (Huang 1999, Huang et al. 2009).6 The predicate bei is a main verb. It selects a subject, assigning it an Experiencer thetarole. Bei also selects an IP complement, forming a complex predicate with it; the complex predicate takes the Experiencer argument selected by bei as its subject. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5

(7)

Although these resumptive pronoun examples are frequently cited in the literature (Huang 1999, Huang et al. 2009 etc.) my informants found these marginal at best; however, the presence of the adverb yi-xia ‘once’ improves the example greatly (as reported in Lin 2009). The proposal developed here does not lead to an obvious solution to this problem. I leave it to future research. 6 Pre-cursors and variants of this account include at least Feng (1995), Chiu (1995), Cheng et al. (1996) Ting (1998), Tang (2001), Simpson & Ho (2008), Huang et al. (2009), Lin (2009), Liu (2012), Huang (2013).

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The object of an embedded lexical verb (the ‘gap’) is base-generated as a null category pro with a null operator (Huang et al. 2009: 121); the operator adjoins to spec-IP, and from this position is predicated on the subject of bei. (8) Nei feng xin bei wo jiao Lisi qing Wangwu tuo ta meimei ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I tell Lisi ask Wangwu request his sister send ASP Lit: ‘That letter was told-Lisi-to-ask-Wangwu-to-have-his-sister-send by me.’ (‘That letter was such that I told Lisi to ask Wangwu to have his sister send [it].’)
EXPERIENCERi BEI [CP/IP OPi [IP Lisi…

(9)

send proi]]

Predication

A’-movement (operator movement) (Huang et al. 2009: 138)

More recently it has been argued that bei has a ‘chameleonic’ nature (Huang 2013), and that its syntax can involve either control or raising, dependent on context, in both its short and local long uses (Liu 2012, Huang 2013); yet even in this recent discussion the longdistance long bei-construction is held to be derived as in (9) (Liu 2012, Huang 2013: 100). 2.2. Problems with previous accounts Despite this consensus there are a number of problems with an operator account. The first set relate to whether the initial XP is base-generated in that position; the second relate to whether the relationship between the initial XP and its gap involves operator movement. First, according to this account, the initial XP is an Experiencer selected by bei. This is surprising given that inanimate arguments such as nei feng xin ‘that letter’ in (8) are not typical Experiencers. The motivation for a thematic relationship between bei and the initial XP centres on the possibility of subject-oriented adverbs preceding the bei morpheme, where the adverb scopes exclusively over the initial XP (Cheng et al. 1996, Ting 1998: 339, Huang 1999, Huang et al. 2009: 115, Liu 2012, Huang 2013). (10) Zhangsan guyi bei Lisi da Zhangsan intentionally BEI Lisi hit ‘Zhangsan intentionally got hit by Lisi.’ le.
ASP

(Huang 1999: 428) It is proposed that subject-oriented adverbs impose a selectional restriction on their subjects, such that they are exclusively compatible with Agent and Experiencer thematic roles; if the thematic role of the initial XP were determined by the lexical verb (i.e. da ‘hit’), it would bear a Patient theta-role, and thus not meet the selectional requirements of the adverb. Therefore, the argument runs, bei must assign the required thematic role. The argument is supported through comparison of (10) with the English be-passive. In English, where it is not controversial that the thematic role of the derived subject is determined in situ by the lexical verb, the derived subject – as predicted – is apparently not construable with a subject-oriented adverb (see also Lasnik & Fiengo 1974: 552f.). (11) a. *The pedestrian deliberately was hit. b. ??Rodman intentionally was fouled by Ewing. (Huang et al. 2009: 115)

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However, there are in fact a number of examples of subject-oriented adverbs in English be-passives that are construable with the derived subject, much like Mandarin: (12) a. Katherine was intentionally seduced by John. b. Katherine intentionally was seduced by John. (based on Jackendoff 1972: 82) (13) a. Katherine was willingly hired by the contractor. b. Katherine willingly was hired by the contractor. (Ernst 2001: 106) Thus it is not clear that scope of reference exhibits a one-to-one relationship with thematic roles, or that it is an argument’s thematic role that exclusively determines its compatibility with a particular class of adverb. The behaviour of reflexives also suggests that the XP in initial position is not basegenerated in situ. The anaphor ziji ‘self’ is a subject-oriented reflexive. In contrast to English, ziji is not clause bound, but can be bound by any argument in its minimal governing category. (14) Zhangsani yiwei [IP Wangwuj piping le zijii/j] Zhangsan think Wangwu criticise ASP REFL ‘Zhangsani thinks that Wangwuj criticised himi/ himselfj.’

(Huang et al. 2009: 338)

This pattern is also observed in the bei-construction: in the following, the initial XP reflexive may be bound by either embedded argument: (15) [Zijii/j de haizi]k [zijii/j de bei Zhangsani jiao Wangwui piping haizi]k le REFL DE children BEI Zhangsan tell criticised

Wangwu
ASP

‘[Hisi/j own children]k were such that Zhangsani told Wangwuj to criticise [them]k.’ If the initial XP were base-generated in initial position, it should behave in the same way as base-generated topics, which cannot be bound by an embedded argument, as shown in (16);7 a base-generated topic has the interpretation of ‘aboutness’, illustrated in (17). (16) shu, Zhangsani dou shui-zhao le. REFL DE book Zhangsan even fall-asleep ASP ‘(As for) self’si book, even Zhangsani is about to fall asleep.’ shu, Zhangsani dou shui-zhao le. book Zhangsan even fall-asleep ASP ‘(As for) that book, even Zhangsani is about to fall asleep.’ (Huang et al. 2009: 205; ff.10)
DEM CLF

*Zijii de

(17)

Nei

ben

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7

A moved topic can be bound by embedded arguments: i. [Zijii de shu]j, Zhangsani bu xiang kan [zijii de shu]j. REFL DE book Zhangsan NEG want read ‘[Hisi own book]j, Zhangsani did not want to read [it]j.’

(Huang et al. 2009: 205)

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Finally, the availability of reconstruction for scope not only shows that the initial XP is not base-generated in situ, but that the long-distance relationship is not derived via operator movement. In Mandarin – in contrast to English – the scope of an active sentence is rigid with respect to surface ordering (!>", *">! in (14); ">!, *!>" in (15)): (18) Yi ge nuren zhua-zou le mei ge ren. One CLF woman arrest-go ASP every CLF person ‘A woman arrested everyone.’ (Aoun & Li 1993: 17) (19) Zhangsan renwei mei ge laoshi ceshi le you xuesheng de fayu.8 Zhangsan reckon every CLF teacher examine ASP some student DE French ‘Zhangsan reckons every teacher examined some student’s French.’

However, in the bei-construction, both narrow and wide scope readings are available (">!, !>"): (20) Mei ge ren dou bei yi ge nuren zhua-zou le.9 Every CLF person all BEI one CLF woman arrest-go ASP ‘Everyone was arrested by a woman.’ (Aoun & Li 1993: 17) Zhangsan renwei you xuesheng de fayu bei mei ge laoshi ceshi le. Zhangsan reckon some student DE French BEI every CLF teacher examine ASP ‘Zhangsan reckons some student’s French was examined by every teacher.’

(21)

These examples illustrate that existentially quantified subjects – not just universal quantifiers, as reported in Aoun and Li (1993) – are rigid for a wide scope reading in active sentences in Mandarin, but that in the bei-construction, derived existentially quantified subjects are ambiguous between wide and narrow readings. Leaving precise analysis of quantifiers aside, the ambiguity indicates that the surface initial XP is merged in a position that is c-commanded in the domain of the quantifier. This is unexpected if the initial XP is base-generated in situ as an argument of bei. Furthermore, the ambiguity indicates that the construction is not derived via operator movement, as operator relationships do not yield reconstruction. In short, the initial XP is derived via movement, but – crucially – not operator movement. 2.3. A or A-bar movement? If the bei-construction is derived via movement, the availability of a long-distance dependency, as in (22), might suggest it is derived by A’-movement. Indeed, Peltomaa (2006) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8

The embedded clause use of the embedded clause is intended to prevent interaction of scope with the Definiteness Effect. For details of the Definiteness Effect in Mandarin, see Huang et al. (2009: 318-28). 9 For Huang (1999) scope is also rigid in the bei-construction. However, my informants obtained the ambiguity reading reported in Aoun & Li (1993).

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and Cann & Wu (2010) argue that the bei-construction is (object) topicalisation. Topicalisation, illustrated in (23), is a canonical example of A’-movement. (22) Nei feng xin bei wo jiao Lisi qing Wangwu tuo ta meimei ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I tell Lisi ask Wangwu request his sister send Lit: ‘That letter was told-Lisi-to-ask-Wangwu-to-have-his-sister-send by me.’ (‘That letter was such that I told Lisi to ask Wangwu to have his sister send [it].’) Nei feng xin, wo jiao Lisi qing Wangwu tuo ta meimei ji-zou le. That CLF letter I tell Lisi ask Wangwu request his sister send ASP ‘That letter, I told Lisi to ask Wangwu to have his sister send.’

ASP

(23)

However the availability of (object) topicalisation in Mandarin is much less restricted than the bei-construction, suggesting that the two are syntactically distinct. For example, in an object topicalisation structure, any argument can be preposed to sentence-initial position: (24) a. Lisi, wo jiao qing Wangwu tuo ta meimei ji-zou le nei feng xin. Lisi, I tell ask Wangwu request his sister send ASP that CLF letter ‘Lisi, I told to ask Wangwu to have his sister send that letter.’ b. Wangwu, wo jiao Lisi qing tuo ta meimei ji-zou le nei feng xin. Wangwu, I tell Lisi ask request his sister send ASP that CLF letter ‘Wangwu, I told Lisi to ask to have his sister send that letter.’ By contrast, in the bei-construction, most speakers can only prepose the most deeply embedded object; those speakers that do allow a less deeply embedded argument to be extracted require the predicate qu ‘go’ to mark the ‘gap’. As shown in (24), no such marking is required for object topicalisation. (25) a. Lisi bei wo jiao *(qu) qing Wangwu ji-zou le nei feng xin. Lisi BEI I tell go ask Wangwu send ASP that CLF letter Lit: ‘Lisi was told-to-ask-Wangwu-to-send-the-letter by me.’ (‘Lisi was such that I told [him] to ask Wangwu to send that letter.’) b. Wangwu bei wo jiao Lisi qing *(qu) ji-zou le nei feng xin. Wangwu BEI I tell Lisi ask go send ASP that CLF letter Lit: ‘Wangwu was told-Lisi-to-ask-to-send-the-letter by me.’ (‘Wangwu was such that I told Lisi to ask [him] to send that letter.’) Moreover, and unlike object topicalisation, the bei-construction is sensitive to complement type. For example, the bei-construction requires a non-finite complement (Ting 1998: 331, Huang 1999: 15); however, object topicalisation is compatible with finite complements. (26) a. *Nei feng xin bei wo shuo Lisi qing Wangwu ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I say Lisi ask Wangwu send ASP Lit: ‘That letter was said-that-Lisi-to-ask-Wangwu…send by me.’ (‘That letter was such that I said that Lisi to ask Wangwu … send it’)

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b. Nei feng xin bei wo jiao Lisi qing Wangwu ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I tell Lisi ask Wangwu send ASP Lit: ‘That letter was told-Lisi-to-ask-Wangwu-to-send by me.’ (‘That letter was such that I told Lisi to ask Wangwu to send it’) (27) Nei feng xin, wo shuo Lisi qing Wangwu tuo ta meimei ji-zou le. That CLF letter I say Lisi ask Wangwu request his sister send ASP ‘That letter, I told Lisi to ask Wangwu to have his sister send.’

Finally, the bei-construction, but not topicalisation, is sensitive to the unaccusative/ unergative distinction. Following Laws & Yuan (2010), a subset of unaccusative intransitives, described for expository purposes as ‘true’ unaccusatives, do not permit subject inversion without a locative argument. (28) a. You da you wennuan de dong lai le. Also big also warm DE winter come ASP ‘The long warm winter arrived.’ b. Jin nian de tao hua shi shang ge yue lan le. This year DE peach flower FOC last CLF month rot ASP ‘This year’s peach blossoms rotted last month.’ c. Da duo fanren da huo yihou si le. Big many prisoners big fire after dead ASP ‘Most of the prisoners, after the fire, were dead.’ The bei-construction is incompatible with ‘true’ unaccusatives (29), but ‘true’ unaccusatives can be topicalised (30). (29) a. *You da you wennuan de dong bei lai le. Also big also warm DE winter BEI come ASP ‘The long warm winter was arrived.’ b. *Jin nian de tao hua bei lan le. This year DE peach flower BEI rot ASP ‘This year’s peach blossoms were rotted.’ c. *Da huo yihou, da duo fanren bei si le. Big fire after big many prisoners BEI dead ASP ‘After the fire, most of the prisoners were dead.’ (30) a. You da you wennuan de dong Zhangsan renwei yijing lai le. Also big also warm DE winter Zhangsan think already come ASP ‘The long warm winter, Zhangsan thinks it’s arrived.’

This Sensitivity to predicate class is unexpected if the bei-construction is derived via A’-movement, but expected if bei is Case/Agree related, and derived via A-movement. There might be more general objections that the Mandarin bei-construction involves A- rather than A’-movement. The first may be that the potential to reconstruct for scope is a classic A/A’-diagnostic in languages such as English. However, in contrast to languages like

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English where A-movement does not reconstruct (although see Legate 2003), in languages such as Japanese and German the lack of A-reconstruction (in short scrambling) only concerns binding; A-movement does allow reconstruction for scope (Wurmbrand 2010). The reconstruction data in (17)-(20) therefore does not entail that the initial XP is related to its gap via A’-movement. A second objection might be that the long-distance examples given above are sensitive to island constraints, another diagnostic of A-bar movement. However, I assume that both Aand A’-movement are sensitive to islands, but that (long-distance) A-movement is usually blocked by other constraints, such as intervening arguments. A possible example would be the following raising violation of the Complex NP Constraint for English: (31) *John seemed that the belief John was smart was false. (Ian Roberts, p.c.) This brings us to the final problem with an A-movement account: under familiar principles of computational locality, A-movement of the NP that letter, from the complement position of ji-zou ‘send’ to sentence-initial position, should be blocked by the (many) apparently intervening NP arguments: (32) Nei feng xin bei wo jiao Lisi qing Wangwu tuo ta meimei ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I tell Lisi ask Wangwu request his sister send ASP Lit: ‘That letter was told-Lisi-to-ask-Wangwu-to-have-his-sister-send by me.’ (‘That letter was such that I told Lisi to ask Wangwu to have his sister send [it].’)

This problem is examined in detail in the next Section. In brief I will argue that longdistance long bei-constructions are compatible with intervening arguments only in a restricted set of syntactic environments: with certain ditransitive structures, and with object control predicates. These syntactic environments are unsurprising if the bei-construction is derived via A-movement, but unexpected if the structure is derived via operator- or A’-movement. 3. Limiting intervention effects In contrast to previous studies, I will argue that long-distance long bei-constructions can only evade locality restrictions in a very restricted set of syntactic environments, namely with double object constructions and with object control verbs. The absence of A-movement intervention effects with double object constructions is familiar cross-linguistically, so I discuss this first. Building on this, I sketch a theory of the derivation of object control in Mandarin, accounting for the possibility of long-distance Amovement through these structures. 3.1. A-movement in ditransitives in Mandarin As in English, in Mandarin there are many means of realising ditransitive predicates. The first resembles an English double object construction, with the goal (or recipient) preceding the theme linearly, with neither argument morphologically marked by a case or preposition. (33) Ta song le wo yi ben shu He give ASP I one CLF book ‘He gave me a book’ ! ! Double object construction

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The second resembles the English prepositional dative, with the theme preceding a recipient, and the recipient obligatorily marked by the co-verb gei.10 The co-verb functions as a dative or prepositional marker; gei licenses only recipients – goals (including locations) are not possible. (34) Ta song le yi ben shu gei wo He give ASP one CLF book GEI I ‘He gave one book to me’ Prepositional dative

In the presence of gei, the recipient may also appear immediately post-verbally (but still preceding the theme).11 (35) Ta song gei wo yi ben shu He give GEI I one CLF book ‘He gave me a book’

Of interest here are the double object construction (33) and verb+gei (35) structures. In both, the recipient (the indirect object) precedes the theme (the direct object); although the recipient is more local to TP, the recipient cannot be preposed; however, the recipient does not act as an intervener, permitting the theme to participate in the bei-construction.12 (36) a. Yi ben shu bei wo mai(-gei) One CLF book BEI I sell-GEI ‘A book was sold to Mary by me.’ Mali ti le. Mary ASP

b. *Mali bei wo mai(-gei) yi ben shu le. Mary BEI I sell-GEI one CLF book ASP ‘Mary was sold a book by me.’ (37) Wo mai(-gei) le Mali yi ben shu. I sell(-GEI) ASP Mary one CLF book ‘I sold Mary a book.’

In the spirit of Paul and Whitman (2010), in both the DOC and the verb-gei variant, in the active the recipient (the indirect object) is introduced in the specifier of VP; this follows !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A co-verb is the traditional Chinese grammar term for functional elements that semantically resemble prepositions, but which distribute more closely with verbs (and which historically derive from lexical verbs). The co-verb gei is derived from the lexical verb ‘give’. 11 There are two additional strategies of realising ditransitives in Mandarin, in which one argument is realised pre-verbally. A recipient marked by gei may occur pre-verbally; the recipient has a benefactive reading. i. Ta gei wo xie le yi feng xin. Benefactive gei+R+V+T He GEI I write ASP one CLF letter ‘He wrote her a letter’ A theme (a direct object) can also occur in pre-verbal position if marked by ‘ba’ (a functional marker, grammaticalised from a lexical verb meaning ‘take, hold, handle’; see Li 2006). ii. Ta ba shu song gei wo. BA construction ba+T+V+R He BA book give GEI I ‘He gave the book to me’ 12 The one exception seems to be wei ‘feed’, which can only be realized as a DOC, yet only permits passivisation of a recipient. Under the account presented here, wei should be ungrammatical in a long-distance beiconstruction, as the recipient should act as an intervener.
10

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from the low applicative semantics of the construction (in the sense of Pylkkänen 2008) (for full details see Paul & Whitman 2010: 266-67). The theme (the direct object) is initially merged as a complement of V. The recipient enters the derivation with an u[Case] feature (see also Georgala 2012), which must be valued for convergence of the derivation. (The presence of u[Case] contrasts with English, where the indirect object – and only the indirect object in American English dialects – of a double object construction can undergo A-movement). Paul & Whitman (2010) present convincing evidence from the placement of adverbs and the position of distributive quantifiers that the recipient raises out of VP; however, the crucial fact here is that the recipient enters an Agree relation with the Applicative projection. (38) (39) [TP I [ASP0 sell- GEI-ASP [APPL Mary [APPL0sell-GEI [VPMary [V0 sell [one-CLF-book]]]]]]]

(Paul & Whitman 2010: 268) Turning to the derivation of the bei-construction, the surface order of (40) suggests that a Voice projection (headed by bei) embeds the Applicative projection. The agent wo ‘I’ is introduced below VoiceP as a specifier in the vP shell; the projection labeled XP will be identified as CauseP in Section 4. (40) Yi ben shu bei wo mai(-gei) One CLF book BEI I sell-GEI ‘A book was sold to Mary by me.’ Mali ti le. Mary ASP

(41)

[TP One CLF book [VOICE0 bei [CAUSEP I [ASP0 sell-GEI [APPL Mary [APPL0sell-GEI [VP Mary [V0 sell [one-CLF-book]]]]]]]]] !

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The recipient (Mary), bears a u[Case]. It enters an Agree relation with the first available Probe it encounters, the Applicative head; agreement with ApplP values its u[Case]. The inaccessibility of the recipient in the context of the bei-construction follows straightforwardly: once the of the recipient has been valued, it is no longer active (Chomsky 2001) and cannot participate in any further Agree relations (it cannot raise again); nor is it a potential intervener for other Agree relations (Baker 1988). The theme, lacking some u[F] – presumably u[Case] – is free to raise past the indirect object to initial position. 3.2. A-movement and object control in Mandarin As discussed in Section 2, the long-distance bei-construction requires a non-finite complement. In addition, the long-distance construction appears to only be possible in the context of object control verbs, such as jiao ‘order’, qing ‘ask’/‘invite’, tuo ‘request’ (from), and pai ‘send’: (43) a. Nei feng xin bei wo jiao Lisi qing Wangwu tuo ta meimei ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I tell Lisi ask Wangwu request his sister send ASP Lit: ‘That letter was told-Lisi-to-ask-Wangwu-to-have-his-sister-send by me.’ (‘That letter was such that I told Lisi to ask Wangwu to have his sister send [it].’) b. Zhangsan bei Lisi pai jingcha zhua-zou le. Zhangsan BEI Lisi send police arrest-go ASP Lit: ‘Zhangsan was sent-the-police-to-arrest by Lisi.’ (‘Zhangsan was such that Lisi sent the police to arrest [him].’) If this generalization is correct, other verbs that should be compatible with the longdistance bei-construction include quan ‘urge’, and bi ‘(try to) force’, bipo ‘force’ (based on Grano 2012: 236). If object control predicates are replace by subject control predicates, the bei-construction is no longer possible: (44) a. *Zhe ben shu bei Zhangsan zhunbei mai. DEM CLF book BEI Zhangsan prepare buy Intended: ‘This book was “prepared-to-buy” by Zhangsan.

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b. *Lisi bei Zhangsan qitu da yixia. Lisi BEI Zhangsan attempt beat once ‘Lisi was “attempted-to-beat” once by Zhangsan.’ (Hu et al. 2001: 1136) (45) *Nei feng xin bei wo dasuan jiao Lisi ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I plan tell Lisi send ASP ‘That letter is such that I plan to tell Lisi to send it.’ *Zhangsan bei Lisi fashi pai jingcha zhua-zou le. Zhangsan BEI Lisi vow send police arrest ASP ‘Zhangsan is such that Lisi vowed to send the police to arrest him.’

(46)

Object control predicates, or at least those under discussion here, are triadic: in addition to two DP arguments, they take an event as a complement. Following much previous work, including Larson (1991), I assume that the structure of the object control predicates is that of double object constructions, with the event as the internal argument of the control predicate. The key difference between the two structures, following Larson (1988, et seq.), is the introduction of a causative head in addition to the applicative head; this anticipates discussion in Section 4. (47) Wo jiao Lisi tuo ta ji-zou le nei feng xin . I tell Lisi request he send ASP that CLF letter ‘I told Lisi to request he send the letter.’

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The object control predicate jiao ‘tell’ is generated with the functional heads ApplP and CauseP, through which it undergoes head movement (to CauseP) in order to obtain the relevant semantics. The argument undergoing causation, Lisi, enters an Agree relation with ApplP, in the same way described above for double object constructions. This argument is also in a predication relation with PRO; PRO is base-generated as the external argument of the event complement. The derivation of the bei-construction proceeds as in the same way as for the double object construction. The recipient (Lisi), as before bears u[Case]. It enters an Agree relation with the most local Probe ApplP, rendering it inactive for Agree relations, and is no longer acts a potential intervener. ! !

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Nei feng xin bei wo jiao Lisi tuo ta ji-zou le. That CLF letter BEI I tell Lisi ask he send ASP Lit: ‘That letter was told-Lisi-to-ask-him-to-send by me.’ (‘That letter was such that I told Lisi to ask him send [it].’)

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3.3. Summary Long-distance A-movement in bei-constructions escapes intervention effects only in the restricted context of (particular) ditransitive constructions, and with object control predicates, which have the same underlying structure as double object constructions. It is therefore not a property of the bei morpheme itself that permits a long-distance relationship; rather, long-distance A-movement is always possible, but is ruled out in the context of active intervening arguments. Where apparently intervening arguments are inactive – for example, because a more local (Applicative) head has already valued its Case feature – intervention effects are obviated, and a long-distance relationship is possible. 4. The introduction of the agent We now turn to a second property of the bei-construction, unrelated to the issue of Amovement. Although the bei-construction is generally referred to as the Mandarin passive, the overt agent in the (long) bei-construction does not undergo ‘demotion’ to an oblique (noncore argument) status, in contrast to the agent in, for example, the English be-passive. The remainder of the paper explores the syntactic status of the agent. (51) Ta bei pian le. He BEI cheat ASP ‘He was cheated.’ (short bei-construction)

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Ta bei wo pian le. He BEI I cheat ASP ‘He was cheated by me.’

(long bei-construction)

4.1. The syntactic status of the agent and the taxonomy of passives Evidence that the agent retains its ‘subjecthood’ – or that it is not ‘demoted’ – comes from the fact that the subject-oriented anaphor ziji ‘self’ is sensitive to the agent in the beiconstruction; adjuncts, such as the Prepositional Phrase gen ‘with’, cannot bind ziji ‘self’. (53) Akiui gen Lisij taolun [zijii/*j de jingyan] Akiu with Lisi discuss self DE experience ‘Akiu discussed his own experience with Lisi.’ Akiui bei Lisij jieshao gei [zijii/?j de erzi] Akiu BEI Lisi introduce to SELF DE son ‘Akiu was introduced to self’s son by Lisi.’ (Chiu 1995: 88) In addition, bei and the DP that follows it do not distribute with other adjuncts. Adjuncts in Mandarin, such as PPs, can prepose freely to sentence-initial position, and more generally do not exhibit a fixed ordering, as illustrated in (55). This flexibility is not true of bei and the following DP, which must occur in a fixed position, as in (56) (Li 1990: 157-64; Huang et al. 2009: 116-9): (55) a. Wo [PP gen Zhangsan] hen chudelai. I with Zhangsan very get-along ‘I get along well with Zhangsan.’ b. [PP Gen Zhangsan] wo hen chudelai. With Zhangsan I very get-along ‘I get along well with Zhangsan.’ (56) a. Zhangsan zuotian [Voice bei] [DP Lisi] da le. Zhangsan yesterday BEI Lisi hit ASP ‘Zhangsan was hit by Lisi yesterday.’ b. *[Voice bei][DP Lisi] Zhangsan zuotian da le. BEI Lisi Zhangsan yesterday hit ASP ‘Zhangsan was hit by Lisi yesterday.’ (Huang et al. 2009: 116) Finally, coordination demonstrates that the agent forms a constituent with the predicate that follows it. This is unexpected if the agent is an adjunct, or some other oblique. (57) Ta bei Lisi He BEI Lisi ma le liang sheng, Wangwu ti le san xia.13 scold ASP two CL Wangwu kick ASP three times

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A coordinate marker is not necessary for clausal coordination in Mandarin.

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‘He was scolded twice by Lisi, and kicked three times by Wangwu.’ (Huang et al. 2009: 117) The coordination example also demonstrates that the agent DP does not form a constituent with bei: bei Lisi in the example above is not syntactically equivalent to ‘by Lisi’. For reasons of space I do not discuss this further, as the non-constituency of bei DP has been established in much previous work (Li 1990, Ting 1998, Tang 2001, Huang 1999, Huang, et al. 2009: 115-8). The crucial point is that the agent does not undergo demotion in the manner familiar from passives in languages such as English. I propose that the absence of agent demotion follows from the locus of the introduction of the external argument in Mandarin. 4.2. Introducing external arguments in Mandarin In English, Voice (or a v syncretic with Voice), is often taken as the head that introduces the external argument (see especially Kratzer 1996, but also Chomsky 1995, Pylkkänen 2008, Collins 2005, etc.). If Voice introduces the external argument in English, it follows that the status of the external argument is affected by its presence (or absence).14 I will assume that like English, Mandarin has a VoiceP, and that the morpheme bei is its head (see also Liu 2012). However, word order, and the fact that bei and the agent do not form a constituent (cf. Section 4.1) indicate that the morpheme bei and the agent are not in the same functional This suggests that, po unlike (23) a. projection. Laozhang da de chuangzi le. English, the introduction of the external argument in Mandarin is not linked to VoiceP (pace Kratzer 1996, Collins 2005, Pylkkänen p.n. hit Ext window break Prt 2008). 'Laowang hit [the window such that] the window broke.' Indeed been zhuang argued de independently not in the context of the beib. it has Mutou chuangzi po (although le. wood strike Ext window break Prt construction or Voice alternations), that in Mandarin, the external argument can be introduced 'The wood stroke window such that] the window broke.' by a range of (lexical) heads, and that [the its locus depends on the predicate complex (Lin 2001). Taifeng chui delexical chuangzi po le. This follows c. from the significant decomposition in Mandarin, observable in the typhoon blow Ext window break Prt domain of the complex syntax-semantics mismatches of its numerous argument-alternating 'The typhoon blow [on the window such theHuang window broke.' constructions (Huang 1988 et seq., Cheng et al. 1996, Linthat] 2001, 2009). Under the 0 ‘lexical decomposition hypothesis’, an apparently mono-morphemic X category may In view of (23a-c), the verbal compounds, da-po 'hit-break', zhuang-po 'strike-break', and encompass multiple silent X0 heads. The result is that in Mandarin, sentences are built up of chui-po 'blow-break' in (22) actually result from multiple-VP structures (cf. Sybesma 1992, light verbs that introduce arguments into structures.
Huang 1992). The structural analysis and the derivation for (22-23) are represented in the

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diagram in (24): (24)

An illustration of lexical decompostion
.... VP V' V %hit ! # # &strike " # 'blow # $ DP the window VP V' V break Optional Incorporation ! # " Causative-agentive # $ ! # # " Inchoative-resultative # # $

(Lin 2001: 35)
The verb po 'break' starts out heading a VP structure in the underlying structure with a subject -- the lower VP in (24). If that's all it is, the structure surfaces as (21a), Chuangzi po le 'The window broke'. To causativize po 'break', an additional VP layer, namely the

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The relationship between Voice and the introduction of the 35 external argument in the passive varies; for some discussion see Pylkkänen (2008) and Harley (2013). The English passive details are not important here; what matters is that multiple heads are associated with the introduction of the external argument in Mandarin, but not in English.

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(54) illustrates that (optional) incorporation of predicates occurs in the context of causative-agentive predicates. This entails that more structure is associated with causativeagentive predicates relative to inchoative-resultative predicates; concomitantly, the external argument is introduced by a causative head with causative predicates, but not with inchoatives (where it is introduced by, presumably, a distinct projection of v or V; the precise label is not important here). CausativeP is a plausible locus of the agent in the bei-construction. ‘Causativisation’, as employed here, introduces syntactically an (implicit) event argument ranging over causing events (Pylkkänen 2008: 83); crucially, it does not necessarily increase the number of the verb's syntactic arguments. That is not to say that CausativeP does not introduce arguments; I assume that CausativeP may introduce an external argument (see also Huang 1997, Lin 2001, Huang et al. 2009, Harley 2013). We begin with the observation that if a Causative is embedded within the beiconstruction, the agent does not undergo demotion; this pattern is also seen in long local and non-local bei-constructions without overt causative morphemes. (59) Nei feng xin bei wo rang gei le Lisi. That CLF letter BEI I CAUS GEI ASP Lisi ‘That letter was given to Lisi, and I let that happen (without me competing with Lisi)’ Although bei may embed causation, causatives cannot embed bei; (60) a. *Chuangzi rang/ jiao Lisi bei dapo le. Window CAUS Lisi BEI break ASP ‘The window got broken by Lisi.’ (Huang 2013: 107) As such, the following cartography of the Mandarin vP shell seems plausible, where Voice precedes causation. (61)

I propose that the structure in (61) is always present in the bei-construction, and that, regardless of the overt or non-overt status of the CAUSE head, the agent is always introduced the specifier of CauseP. Evidence that CauseP is always present follows from the semantic restrictions on the types of events with which the bei-constructions (both long and short) are compatible. For example, true (individual-level) stative predicates are incompatible with the beiconstruction. (62) *Zhangsan bei (wo) ai le. Zhangsan BEI I loved/pampered ASP ‘Zhangsan was loved by me.’ ! !

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Zhangsan bei (wo) teng-ai le. Zhangsan BEI I loved/pampered ASP ‘Zhangsan was loved by me.’ (Ting 1998: ff.22)

Under the lexical decomposition hypothesis, the minimal pair (57) and (58) are distinguished by their (non-overt) decomposition: (58) but not (57) includes a (null) causative light verb. The compatibility of (58) but not (57) with the bei-construction follows if the bei morpheme obligatorily takes a causative complement. Crucially, it is not the semantics inherent to individual stage-level predicates that prevents compatibility with the bei-construction. For example, in the Mandarin resultative-de construction, the modifier de is added to a verb, introducing a clause that describes the result of the event denoted by V (Huang et al. 2009: 84). Cheng (2008) argues that this result-de introduces a CauseP. Thus, under the hypothesis presented here, any predicate modified by resultative-de should be compatible with the bei-construction. The following examples demonstrate that once an individual-level stative predicate is placed in a resultative-de construction, it becomes compatible with the bei-construction, as predicted. (64) *Shoupa bei Zhangsan ku-shi le. Handkerchief bei Zhangsan cry-wet ASP ‘The handkerchief became wet from Zhangsan crying.’ Shoupa bei Zhangsan ku-de dou shi le. Handkerchief bei Zhangsan cry-RESULT all wet ASP ‘The handkerchief was made all wet by Zhangsan from his crying.’ (Based on Huang 1992: 125)

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This demonstrates that it is not the inherent semantics of individual-level stative predicates that determines its compatibility with the bei-construction, but the structure in which the predicate occurs, and specifically, the presence of a CauseP. Staying with resultatives, previous work has argued that while certain classes of secondary predication, such as niu-gan ‘wring-dry’ or chi-si ‘eat-die’, should be identified as having an underlying causative structure (and interpretation); other classes, however, such as chi-ni ‘eat-bored’ do not involve causation, and are classed as inchoative (see Huang 1988, Shibagaki 2010). Leaving the details of the analyses to one side, these independently observed classes provide an additional diagnostic for supposing the bei-construction always takes a causative complement; while the former class, based on a causative structure, should be compatible with the bei-construction, the latter class, which does not involve a causative structure, should not be compatible with the bei-construction. This prediction is borne out: (66) a. Maojin bei Zhangsan niu-gan le. Towel BEI Zhangsan wring-dry ASP ‘The towel has been wrung dry by Zhangsan.’ b. Zhangsan bei zhe zhong yao chi-si le. Zhangsan BEI this kind medicine eat-dead ASP ‘Zhangsan was caused to die by the eating of this kind of medicine.” (67) *Niurou-mian bei Zhangsan chi-ni le.

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Beef-noodles BEI Zhangsan eat-bored ASP ‘The noodles were eaten by Zhangsan, which caused him to become bored.’ (Shibagaki 2010: 63-64) Finally, the co-verbs introduced earlier that productively mark causation, such as jiao ‘to call’ or rang ‘to let’, can be used interchangeably with bei as a non-active marker (see also fn.1) (see also Cheng et al. 1996, Huang 2013: 106), again indicative of the strong intertwining of Voice and causation in Mandarin. (68) a. Ta-de huzhao jiao ren touzou le. He-DE passport CAUS person steal ASP ‘His passport was stolen by someone.’ b. Ta-de zixingche jiao ta airen gei-mai le. He-DE bike CAUS he spouse give-sell ASP ‘His bike was sold by his spouse.’ c. Haizi rang fuqin da le yidun. Child CAUS father hit ASP once ‘The child was hit by the father.’ If the introduction of the external argument is distinct from the presence of Voice in Mandarin, then there is no reason to expect that the status of the agent should be affected by the presence or absence of the Voice projection. It is for this reason that the bei-construction does not yield ‘demotion’ of the agent, but instead has the status of a full syntactic argument, as observed in Section 4.1. 5. Conclusion Having established that the long-distance dependency possible in the long beiconstruction is derived via A-movement, the first half of the paper examined the availability of the long-distance dependency more closely. The long-distance dependency is in fact possible with only a subset of predicates, which share the property of deactivating one of their internal arguments. According to this analysis, the availability (or not) of long-distance movement in the long and short bei-construction does not follow from any particular property of the bei-construction itself, but follows from independent properties of its complement. The second part of the paper examined the status of the agent of the bei-construction. The core proposal made is that the agent of the bei-construction – and external arguments in Mandarin more generally – are not introduced via Voice; this is possible in Mandarin, but not in English, because in Mandarin the External Argument can be introduced by a range of lexical heads. Instead, the VoiceP of the bei-construction obligatorily selects a CausativeP as its complement, and the agent (the external argument) is introduced in its specifier. It follows that there is no interaction between the Voice projection headed and the agent, and thus the agent does not undergo ‘demotion’ in the bei-construction. References Aoun, J. & Li, A. (1993). Syntax of scope. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.

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Baker, M. (1988). Incorporation: a theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Bruening, B. & Tran, T. 2012. Chinese-type “passives”: a Vietnamese perspective. Ms., University of Delaware, Universität Potsdam. Cann, R. and Y. Wu. (In revision). The Dynamic syntax of Chinese Passive constructions. Ms., University of Edinburgh. Cheng, L. (2008). Deconstructing the shi...de construction. The Linguistic Review 25: 235266. Cheng, L., Huang, J., Li, A. & Tang, J. (1996). Hoo, hoo, hoo: the causative, passive, and dative in Taiwanese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 14, 146-203. Chiu, B. (1995). An object clitic projection in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 4, 77-117. Chomsky, N. (1977). On wh-movement. In Culicover, P., Wasow, T. & Akmajian, A. (eds.), Formal Syntax, 77-132. New York: Academic Press. Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. (2001). Derivation by phase. In Kenstowicz, M. (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language, 1-52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Collins, C. (2005). A smuggling approach to the passive in English. Syntax 8, 81–120. Ernst, T. (2001). The syntax of adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feng, S. (1995).The passive construction in Chinese. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 1, 1-28. Georgala, E. (2012). Applicatives in their structural and thematic function: a minimalist account of multitransitivity. Ph.D dissertation, Cornell University. Grano, T. (2012). Control and restructuring at the syntax-semantics interface. Ph.D dissertation, University of Chicago. Harley, H. (2013). External arguments and the Mirror Principle: On the distinctness of Voice and v. Lingua 125, 34-57. Her, O.S. (2009). Unifying the long passive and the short passive: on the bei construction in Taiwan Mandarin. Language and Linguistics 10, 421-470. Hu, J., Pan, H. & Xu, L. (2001). Is there a finite vs. non-finite distinction in Chinese? Linguistics 39.6, 1117-1148. Huang, J. (1988). ‘Wo pao de kuai’ and Chinese phrase structure. Language 64, 274-311 Huang, J. (1992). Complex predicates in control. In Larson, R.K., Iatridou, S., Lahiri, U., & Higginbotham, J. (eds.), Control and grammar, 109-147. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Huang, J. (1997). On lexical structure and syntactic projection. Chinese Languages and Linguistics 3, 45-89. Huang, J. (1999). Chinese passives in comparative perspective. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 29, 423-509. Huang, J. (2013). Variations in non-canonical passives. In Alexiadou, A & Schäfer, F. (eds.), Non-canonical passives, 95-114. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Huang, J., Li, A., & Li, Y. (2009). The Syntax of Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackendoff, R. (1972). Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Keenan, E. L. (1985). Passive in the world’s languages. In Shopen, T. (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Clause structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keenan, E. & Dryer, M. (2007). Passive in the World's Languages. In Shopen, T. (ed.), Clause Structure, Language Typology and Syntactic Description, 1, 325-361. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Kratzer, A. (1996). Severing the external argument from its verb. In Rooryck, J. & Zaring, L. (eds.), Phrase structure and the lexicon, 109-137. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Larson, R. (1988). On the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 335-391. Larson, R. (1991). ‘Promise’ and the theory of control. Linguistic Inquiry 22, 103-139. Lasnik, H. & Fiengo, R. (1974). Complement Object Deletion. Linguistic Inquiry 5, 535-571. Laws, J. & Yuan, B. (2010). Is the core-peripheral distinction for unaccusative verbs crosslinguistically consistent? Chinese Language and Discourse 1, 220-263. Legate, J. A. (2003). Some interface properties of the phase. Linguistic Inquiry 34, 506–515. Li, A. (1990). Order and Constituency in Mandarin Chinese. Kluwer: Dordrecht. Lin, J. (2001). Light Verb Syntax And The Theory Of Phrase Structure. Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Irvine. Lin, J. (2009). Licensing “gapless” bei passives. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 18, 167– 177. Liu, N. (2012). The syntactic structures of the Chinese bei passive and the English be-passive. In Proceedings of GLOW in Asia IX. Simpson, A. & Ho, T. (2008). The comparative syntax of passive structures in Chinese and Vietnamese. In Chan, M. & Kang, H. (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics, 825-42. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University. Paul, W. & Whitman, J. (2010). Applicative structure and Mandarin ditransitives. Duguine, M., Huidobro, S. & Madariaga, N. (eds.), Argument structure and syntactic relations: a cross-linguistic perspective, 261-282. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Peltomaa, M. (2006). Pragmatic nature of Mandarin passive-like constructions. In Werner, A. & Leisiö, L. (eds.), Passivisation and typology: form and function, 83- 114. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pylkkänen, L. (2008) [2002]. Introducing arguments. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Shibagaki, R. (2010). Mandarin secondary predicates. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 8, 57-94. Simpson, A. & Ho, T. (2008). The comparative syntax of passive structures in Chinese and Vietnamese. In Chan, M. & Kang, H. (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics, 825-42. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University. Tang, S. (2001). A complementation approach to Chinese passives and its consequences. Linguistics 39, 257-295. Ting, J. (1998). Deriving the bei-construction in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 7, 319-354. Wurmbrand, S. (2010). Reconstructing the A/A’-distinction in reconstruction. In Stevens, J. (ed.), Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 16.1. !

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Alison Biggs Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge 886 King’s College Cambridge CB2 1ST UK [email protected] !

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ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH DENTAL FRICATIVES BY PAKISTANI LEARNERS NASIR ABBAS SYED (Lasbela University) Abstract This paper is based on a study of the acquisition of dental fricatives by advanced Pakistani learners of English. The results are analyzed in light of predictions of the speech learning model (SLM: Flege 1995) using Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 2004). In Pakistani English, dental fricatives [! "] are substituted with dental stops [t! h d ! ]. The current study aims to find out if Pakistani learners, after having acquired Pakistani English, can acquire British English dental fricatives at advanced level. Perception and production experiments were conducted with a group of 30 advanced Pakistani learners of English who, after acquiring Pakistani English (which substitutes dental fricatives with dental stops), were taught British English. The perception test was based on an identification task, a 3-alternative forced choice task and an AX discrimination task. In the production task, they were asked to produce the words ‘thieve’ and ‘these’ each three times along with some other distracters. The productions were evaluated by four native speakers of English on a Likert scale ranging from 5 to 1. The productions were also analyzed acoustically. The results show that the learners perceive English dental fricatives as labial fricatives [f v] but they can discriminate them from the L1 stops [t! h d ! ]. However, acoustic analysis of the productions indicates that the learners produce English dental fricatives as dental stops [t! h d ! ]. This asymmetry between perception and production poses a challenge for the speech learning model which predicts a correspondence between perception and production. The findings of the study point out that the speech learning model should account for the phonological behaviour of L2 learners and the phonology-phonetics interface which the model lacks. 1. Introduction British traders of the East India Company introduced the English language in the Subcontinent (Pakistan and India) in 17th century CE (Baumgardner 1990). Later, English became the official language when the East India Company occupied the Subcontinent in 1857. In 1947, Pakistan got independence from English rulers but the English language remained the official language in the country. It is a dominant language of media, education and official correspondence in Pakistan (Haque 1993). After the native speakers left, there was no native speaker model for Pakistani learners of English to follow, but they had to learn English because of its national and international importance. Resultantly, a specific variety of English developed in Pakistan during last six decades which, like other post-colonial Englishes, claims the status of a dialect of English (Rahman 1990). Pakistani English (PE) has its own linguistic features some of which differ from the British English (for details see Baumgardner 1993, Mahboob & Ahmar 2004, Rahman 1991, etc.). One of the prominent features of PE is that it does not have dental fricatives in its phonemic inventory and the dental fricatives [! "] of British English are produced as dental stops [t! h d ! ] (Rahman, 1991, Mahboob & Ahmar, 2004). The dental stops exist in most indigenous Pakistani languages. An interesting situation emerges for the students of English language and linguistics in Pakistan when they are taught phonology of English as a module. In the classroom, they are taught the phonology of British English. Thus, they are taught that the dental fricatives [! "] exist in English, and the place and manner of articulation of these

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phonemes are also explained to them. They are also encouraged to speak British English (BE) with as much native-like accuracy as possible. But despite all this effort at academic level, practically what the students normally hear around them in the society is PE which substitutes English dental fricatives [! !] with dental stops [t" h d ! ]. The current study aims to test the perception and production of advanced Pakistani learners of English who, after having acquired PE, are taught BE. The research question is whether such students remain faithful to the already acquired PE and produce English [! "] as stops or whether they acquire BE, accurately producing these sounds as dental fricatives. The remainder of this paper is divided into five sections. The next section provides a brief introduction of the basic ideas and predictions of the speech learning model (SLM: Flege 1995) relevant to the current study. The findings of the study will be analyzed in light of the predictions of the SLM. Section 2 provides details of the participants and experiment conducted for data collection. The data will be presented in section 3. Section 4 is based on a detailed analysis and discussion of the results. The analysis will be done using classical Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 2004). Section 5 concludes this paper. 2. The speech learning model Several models of second language acquisition have been presented to account for the acquisition of L2 sounds. The perceptual assimilation model commonly known as PAM (Best 1994, 1995), feature model known as FM (Brown 1998, 2000) and the speech learning model (Flege 1995) are some of the most well known models of second language acquisition. The findings of the current study will be analyzed in light of the predictions of the speech learning model so only the speech learning model will be discussed in detail. The reason for this is that the SLM is based on phonetic perception of L2 learners which is the main concern of this study. The SLM also predicts a correspondence between perception and production whereas other models (e.g. FM, PAM, etc.) primarily account for perception of L2 learners. Since the objective of the current experiment is to study a relationship between the perception and the production of L2 sounds, the speech learning model suits the study. The speech learning model divides L2 sounds into 'new', 'similar' and 'identical' out of which the similar ones are considered most difficult to perceive for L2 learners (Flege 1995). The SLM develops different hypotheses about different learning scenarios. According to the model, learners perceive gradient phonetic details of L2 sounds. This implies that learners can perceive allophonic variance of L2 sounds. If L2 learners perceive a difference between an L2 and the closest L1 sound, they develop a separate phonetic representation for the L2 sound. The phonetic categories developed by bilinguals may be different from those of monolinguals, either for maintaining contrast between the L2 and the corresponding L1 sound, or if the categories of bilinguals are based on features different from those of the monolinguals of the L2. On the other hand, if L2 learners do not perceive a difference between L2 and the corresponding L1 sounds clearly, they equate the two sounds. Flege calls this a mechanism of equivalence classification (Flege ibid.). In case of equivalence classification, the establishment of a new phonetic category for the new L2 sounds is blocked. In this case, learners develop the same phonetic representation for the L2 and the closest L1 sound. Defining, the concept of equivalence classification, Flege comments that equivalence classification between two sounds may be of two types: weak equivalence classification and strong equivalence classification. In case of weak equivalence classification, learners can perceive a little difference between an L2 and the closest L1 sound but they cannot perceive it clearly enough to develop a new phonetic representation for the L2 sound. Sometimes weak equivalence between two sounds leads to the development of a phonetic representation which

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is a merger of the two sounds (Flege 1987). In case of a strong equivalence classification, establishment of a new phonetic category for L2 sounds is totally blocked. In that case, learners perceive the L2 sound as the closest L1 sound and have the same representation in perception and production of the two sounds. As pointed out earlier, the speech learning model claims that learners perceive gradient phonetic details of L2 sounds. On the other hand, it also claims a correspondence between the perception and production of L2 sounds. This means that, according to the SLM, there is a symmetry between phonetic perception and phonological (lexical) production whereas it is well-known in the literature that sometimes phonetic and phonological factors play critically different roles in L2 acquisition. The interface of phonetics and phonology and its influence on the perception of L2 sounds is well-established in the field of second language acquisition. See Boersma & Hamann (2009) for a detailed discussion on phoneticsphonology interface. The current study is conducted with a view to determine how well the speech learning model can account for the perception and production of English dental fricatives by Pakistani learners. 3. The current study A group of thirty Masters students of English were selected for this experiment. The participants spoke the same L1 and were studying in the same university in Pakistan. At the MA level the students have a lot of opportunity to speak and listen to English. In Pakistan, English is taught as a compulsory part of courses of studies from primary school regardless of the discipline of the student. Therefore, the participants of this study were taught PE up to Bachelor level. At the time of experiment, they were registered as regular students of the MA English programme in their second year.1 In the Masters programme, although they still hear PE around them, they are taught the phonology of British English (BE) in class. According to their statements, they speak English for an average of 2 hours (standard deviation 1.20) and listen to it spoken by non-native Pakistani speakers for an average of 2.56 hours (standard deviation 1.65) daily. Their average age was 21.97 (standard deviation 2.63) years. Before the main experiment, the students were asked to provide information about their academic and linguistic background through a questionnaire. The above information was elicited through the questionnaire. They were also requested to provide written permission for recording of their voice and using the data for research purposes anonymously. Permission to conduct the experiment within the campus was also obtained from the heads of the institutions where the participants were studying. Afterwards, the learners were given a perception and production test. The perception test had three tasks: an identification task, a 3 alternative forced choice (hereafter 3AFC) discrimination task and an AX discrimination task. In the identification task, the participants were asked to identify and write, in Urdu2 and English in the relevant columns of a given answer sheet, which consonants they heard between two low vowels in the stimuli. The stimuli of the test carried along with other distracters, [a!a] and [a"a] produced by a female native speaker of English aged 27. This task had 3 repetitions providing 90 responses (30 participants * 3 repetitions). Before being used in the test, the stimuli were played to four native speakers of English who confirmed that the consonants were produced in correct
1 2

MA is a two-year degree in Pakistan. The participants were asked to write their answers in two languages, namely English and the national language Urdu because some of the sounds of English do not have proper letters in English script. For example, dental fricatives do not have specific letters in the English alphabet but the Urdu language does have relevant letters for these sounds. Writing answers in two languages provided the participants the required letters.

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English pronunciation. It is important to point out an interesting fact that in Urdu, which is a national language of the participants and Saraiki, which is their mother tongue, the letters for dental fricative consonants [! "] exist but the sounds themselves do not exist. This is because Pakistani languages got their script from Arabic and the sounds [! "] do exist in Arabic. Therefore, the learners were aware of the existence of the letters for dental fricatives. Since they had been taught the phonology of British English, they also knew the IPA symbols for these English phonemes. Still, they were asked to point out if they felt that they were listening to a consonant in the stimuli for which they did not have proper letter available in Urdu3 and English. None of the participants pointed out such a difficulty. The purpose of using Urdu letters along with English ones is that the English alphabet system lacks proper letters for dental fricatives. Most of the participants preferred to write their answers in English letters (not in IPA symbols). Since English lacks letters for dental fricatives, those who wrote their answers correctly, wrote 'the' on listening to ["] sound. Since Urdu has proper letters for dental fricatives, the participants were also asked to write their answers in Urdu. Their responses in Urdu letters further confirmed whether the participants identified the target sounds correctly or not. In the 3AFC task, they listened to sets of sounds including those listed below: (1) [a"a] [a!a] [a"a] [a!a] [ava] [asa] [ada] [aga] [aga] [aba] [aza] [afa]

The learners were asked to choose by ticking one of the following on the given answer sheet after hearing each of the sets of the above sounds: 1. The consonant in the first syllable is the same as the consonant in the second syllable. 2. The consonant in the first syllable is the same as the consonant in the third syllable. 3. The consonant in the first syllable is different from the consonants in both the second and the third syllable. Some other sets of sounds as distracters were also added to the above list. There was no repetition in this task so, in all, 30 responses were obtained in this task. The purpose of this task was to test whether the participants could differentiate English [!] from [s] and [f], and ["] from [z] and [v]. Previous studies report substitution of English dental fricatives with either labial fricatives (Bell & Gibson 2008) or coronal fricatives (Hatten 2009, Lombardi 2003, Weinberger 1997). The third, apparently irrelevant stop given in the list of each of the sets of the stimuli in (1) above was included with the target sounds in the stimuli to make the task more difficult so that the participants would maintain their concentration and decide on the basis of careful listening. All the stimuli were prepared in the voice of the same native speaker of English. The third task of the perception test was an AX discrimination task. All the instructions to the participants were given by the author in their L1 which is also the L1 of the author. The instructions were also written on the answer sheets in English. In this task, two sounds were played and the participants were asked to determine by ticking in the relevant column of the answer sheet if the consonants in the two sets of sounds were the same or different. The first set of sounds in the stimuli in this task was either [a!a] or [a!a] spoken by
3

The L1 of the learners also uses Urdu script with some modifications.

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the same female native speaker of English followed by [at! ha] or [ad ! a] spoken by a female monolingual native speaker of Saraiki which is the L1 of the participants of this study. The L1 sounds were recorded in the voice of a female native speaker who speaks the same dialect of Saraiki which the participants speak.4 Before the Saraiki sounds were used in the test, two native speakers listened to them and confirmed that the sounds were produced with accurate pronunciation. The purpose of this task was to determine whether the participants could discriminate between English dental fricatives and Saraiki dental stops or if they confuse them. Recall that in PE the English dental fricatives [! "] are produced as dental stops. Aspirated and unaspirated dental stops exist in Urdu (Shackle 2007), the national language of the country and Saraiki (Shackle 1976), the L1 of the participants. The participants were instructed to neglect the differences in the tone, accent, pitch, etc. of the speakers and decide only on the basis of the consonants between two ‘a’s in the stimuli. This task had three repetitions. Some distracters were also included in the list of stimuli. The stimuli were presented in random order. A total of 90 responses (30 participants * 3 repetitions) were obtained from this task. In the production test, the students were asked to read in natural, normal speed the words given in a list which contained, along with other English words, ‘these’ and ‘thieve’ each three times. Previous research shows that the front vowel is neutral in its effect on the production of L2 sounds (Syed 2011). Therefore, such words were selected for production in which the target sounds were followed by a tense front vowel. These words start with dental fricatives and are quite commonly used words with which the participants were already familiar. These words carry English dental fricatives on onset of the syllable which is quite a prominent position (Archibald 1998). Therefore, they provide suitable context for the study of English dental fricatives. Four native speakers of BE (aged 23, 32, 40, 42) were asked to evaluate the productions of English dental fricatives in the words ‘these’ and ‘thieve’5 on a Likert scale ranging from 5 to 1. On the scale, 5 was ‘native-like’, 4 was ‘near native-like’, 3 ‘different from natives but understandable’, 2 ‘hardly understandable’ and 1 was ‘unintelligible’. The judges were asked to evaluate the productions only on the basis of the pronunciation of word-initial consonants in the words ‘these’ and ‘thieve’ without being influenced by the (in)accuracy of productions of the other phonemes in the target words. The scores awarded by the four judges were averaged. In the following analysis only averaged results will be presented.6 4. Presentation of the data The data will be presented in the following two subsections. First, the results of the perception test are presented, followed by those of the production test. The results will be analyzed in Section 4.

4

According to Shackle (1976) there are six dialects of Saraiki. All participants of this study speak central dialect of Saraiki. 5 Only two words, namely 'these' and 'thieve' were selected as stimuli, one of which is a verb. The main reason for this is to control or equal the effect of the adjacent vowel on the production of consonants. If a different word starting with a voiceless dental fricative followed by another vowel e.g. [u] were selected as a stimulus, it would be difficult to determine whether the difference in production of voiced and voiceless dental fricatives is on account of learning or on account of the adjacent vowel. Therefore, 'thieve' was selected as a stimulus, which like 'these' starts with a dental fricative, is followed by the same front vowel like 'these' and also consists of one syllable. Therefore, the purpose of selecting phonologically similar words is to control the effect of different factors like familiarity, adjacent vowel, word size, etc. 6 !-fronting is common in English native speakers living in and around Eastern London. The judges were tested for !-fronting and it was confirmed that they produced the voiceless dental fricative as [!], not as [f].

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4.1. Perception test results In the identification test, accuracy of the participants was poorer on [!] than on ["]. They could not identify [!] accurately even in a single trial out of 90 repetitions (30 participants * 3 repetitions) but they identified English ["] accurately in 14 (15.56%) repetitions. English [!] was identified as [s] 12 (13.33%) times and as [f] 78 (86.67%) times. English ["] was identified as [z] 24 (26.67%) times and as [v] 51 (56.67%) times.7 Although the stimuli were presented in random order along with some other distracters, the respondents were consistent in their responses in the repetitions which confirms that their responses were based on their own careful perception and that they were not merely guessing. 8 The results of the other two tasks (3AFC & AX discrimination) are presented together in the following table. Table 1 shows the number of times a sound was discriminated from the closest sound accurately. Table 1: Discrimination test result
Sound pairs Discrimination 3 AFC discrimination (N=30) [a!a] [a!a] [a"a] [a"a] [afa] [asa] [ava] [aza] 7 14 14 20 AX discrimination (N=90) L1 [at! ha] L1[ad ! a] L2 [a!a] L2[a"a] 83 79

The above table shows that only 7 out of 30 students discriminated [!] from [f] and 14 of them discriminated it from [s]. Similarly, 14 participants discriminated ["] from [v] and 20 of them discriminated it from [z]. In this way, the performance of the participants was better on the discrimination of voiced dental fricative than the voiceless one. They assimilated both target sounds with the closer labio-dental fricatives in more trials than with the coronal fricatives. The results of the AX discrimination task show that the participants discriminated the voiceless dental fricative from the corresponding L1 stop 83 times and the voiced dental fricative from the corresponding L1 stop 79 out of 90 times. The excellent performance of the participants in the AX discrimination task indicates that they can discriminate between English dental fricatives and the L1 dental stops. 4.2. Production test results The pariticipants’ productions of the target phonemes were evaluated by four nativespeaker judges. Table 2 shows the averaged scores awarded by the judges. Table 2: Production test results
Stimuli [! ] [" ] Minimum 2.00 2.00 Maximum 4.33 4.67 Mean 3.24 3.51 Std. Deviation .50 .50

The results show that the participants performed better on the voiced ["] than on voiceless [!]. The variance in the means of the two scores is significant (Z= -2.81, p=.005). Overall, the participants could not obtain an average score of 4 which means they were not rated by the
7 8

In one of the trials, the English voiced fricative was identified as an irrelevant consonant. Recall that the participants presented their answers by writing the consonant in English and Urdu.

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native speaker judges as ‘native-like’ or ‘near native-like’ in their production of English dental fricatives. These results show the overall group average. The following table illustrates in detail how many individuals were rated ‘as nativelike,' ‘near native-like’ or in another category in their production of English dental fricatives. Table 3: Individual performance in the production test Score 1 2 3 4 5 [!] 0 8 19 3 0 ["] 0 2 24 4 0 Category Unintelligible Hardly understandable Different from natives but understandable Near native-like Native-like

The above table shows that none of the participants were rated as ‘native-like’ in the native evaluation and only 3 participants for the voiceless and 4 for the voiced dental fricative were considered as ‘near native-like’. The above tests indicate that the participants were very poor in the perception and production of English dental fricatives. They confuse English dental fricatives mostly with labio-dental fricatives [f v] in perception. However, they can clearly differentiate between English dental fricatives and the corresponding L1 dental stops. Their average production is mostly far from even the ‘near native-like’ category. For a clear understanding of the pronunciation of the learners, all recordings of the participants’ productions were acoustically analyzed using Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2012). The analysis shows that all dental fricatives were produced as stops by the participants. The following spectrogram and wave-form provide an example of the productions of the voiced dental fricative ["] of one of the participants. Figure 1: Spectrogram of the word ‘these’

Burst

Pre-voicing

Vowel

Fricative

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In the wave-form, pre-voicing is quite clear before the burst. It is also visible in the shape of darkness at the bottom of the spectrogram pointed out by the arrow. During the burst phase, the vocal folds of the speaker stopped vibrating briefly and the burst was accompanied for a short time by a strong puff of air which is visible with the burst on the spectrogram but it may not be considered a fricative gesture because normally a continuant maintains frication for a considerable amount of time which is reflected in the shape of the concentration of acoustic energy normally on the upper half of the spectrogram depending upon the place of articulation. The final part of the spectrogram is a fricative [z] which clearly shows a concentration of acoustic energy on the upper half of the spectrogram for a considerable time period. There is no such acoustic correlate in the beginning of the word. This shows that the initial consonant of the word ‘these’ was produced as a stop with pre-voicing. In the L1 of the learners, voiced stops (including [d ! ]) are produced with pre-voicing (Syed 2013). This means, the participants substituted voiced English dental fricatives with the voiced dental stops of their L1. For further confirmation of this, voice onset time for all productions of the target phonemes were measured which are given in the following table. Table 4: Voice onset time Sound ["] produced as [d !] [!] produced as [t! h] N 90 90 Minimum -173.67 14.00 Maximum -4.33 104.33 Mean -111.2667 67.4333 Std. Dev. 40.29 18.63

The above table shows that the voiced dental fricative ["] was produced as pre-voiced stop with negative VOT and the voiceless dental fricative [!] was produced as voiceless aspirated dental stop [t! h]. These results are analyzed in the following section. 5. Analysis and Discussion The results presented in the previous section show that Pakistani learners perceive English dental fricatives either as labio-dental fricatives or coronal fricatives. They perceived dental fricatives as labio-dental fricatives in more trials than as coronal fricatives. This shows that most of the learners perceived the stimuli on the basis of acoustic cues. It has been pointed out in previous studies (Simon 2009) that L2 learners whose L1s do not have English dental fricatives perceive these consonants as labial on the basis of acoustic cues because the labial [f v] are acoustically very similar to [! "] (Wester, Gilbers & Lowie 2007) and if they perceive these sounds as [s z] this is on account of phonological reasons (Simon 2009) because both pairs of sounds are attached to the same place node i.e. CORONAL (Clements & Hume 1995). This means that most of the participants perceived the stimuli on the basis of acoustic phonetic cues. Better performance of the learners in the discrimination rather than the identification test is understandable since in a discrimination test learners simply determine on the basis of acoustic cues the difference between two sounds and respond with ‘yes/no’ type answers, but for identification of those sounds they have to retrieve from their L2 phonemic inventory the sound matching the stimuli which is only possible if the learners have clearly established a separate phonetic category for the sounds in their L2 phonemic inventory. Therefore, a better performance by L2 learners in discrimination rather than identification tests is always predictable (Archibald 2005). In this way, most of the participants neglected the feature [coronal] and perceived English dental fricatives as labials on account of acoustic similarity. Some of them, who perceived the stimuli as coronal fricatives [s z], only neglected the feature [distributed] and

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[strident] since the English dental fricatives [! "] are [+distributed, -strident] whereas [s z] are [-distributed, +strident]. An interesting factor in the results is that most of the participants differentiated English dental fricatives from the L1 dental stops accurately (see table 1). However, in production, they substituted these English phonemes with dental stops. Since the stimuli were nonce words, the students perceived them purely on the basis of phonetic cues. The stimuli for the production test, however, were meaningful words of English, so the participants produced them on the basis of their lexical (phonological) understanding. This interface of phonetics and phonology indicates that although the learners can perceive the difference between fricatives and stops phonetically, they produce English dental fricatives as stops because under the influence of their already acquired Pakistani English they have developed a specific phonemic inventory of their own which is dominant in their production. This already acquired representation of English dental fricatives as stops only activates in a lexical or phonological environment. The speech learning model does not seem to account for the above situation successfully. The study shows asymmetric results in perception and production, whereas the model predicts a symmetry between perception and production. Therefore, the results of the study do not accord with the SLM predictions since, i) the SLM assumes that in learners’ L2 phonemic inventory representation of sounds is based on only acoustic phonetic cues whereas the above results show that the Pakistani learners perceived L2 sounds on phonetic grounds but produced them on lexical and phonological grounds; ii) the SLM predicts a correspondence between perception and production, however the results show an asymmetry between the perception and production of the participants. According to the SLM, L2 learners perceive gradient phonetic details of L2 sounds and develop a phonetic category for the sound on the basis of their perception. Their production corresponds with the phonetic category developed by them in their L2 phonemic inventory. In other words, according to the SLM, phonological production is based on phonetic perception. However, the results of this study show a different picture. This phonetics-phonology interface points out that a revision in the speech learning model is required to incorporate the role of phonology in L2 perception. The substitution of dental fricatives with dental stops is because of universal markedness hierarchy since stops are the most unmarked of the consonants (Simon 2009). There are examples of substitutions of English dental fricatives with stops (Lombardi 2003, Yildiz 2006), but the current substitution is triggered more under the influence of PE than the universal markedness of coronal stops. This is because the learners produced the English voiceless dental fricative [!] as the voiceless aspirated stop [t! h], not as the unaspirated stop [t! ]. We already know that Pakistani speakers substitute English [!] with their L1 [t! h] (Mahboob & Ahmar 2004, Rahman 1991). If it were a substitution purely on the basis of markedness only, the participants would have substituted [!] with unaspirated [t! ] which also exists in the L1 of the learners. But the mean VOT for the first consonant in the word ‘thieve’ produced as stop by the participants is 67.43 ms (see table 4). This is a VOT value for aspirated stops not for unaspirated ones. This confirms that the substitution of the dental fricative with the dental stop is done under the influence of PE, not because of universal markedness. An interesting question arises: why do Pakistani learners substitute English [!] with the L1 [t! h] but not with [t! ] which also exists in the L1 phonemic inventory and is more unmarked than aspirated [t! h], since [t! h] along with primary articulation also involves a secondary articulation. The answer is that it is because of the influence of English orthography which does not have a separate letter for the voiceless dental fricative. The L1 and Urdu (the national language of Pakistan) both have two letters for voiceless dental stops,

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one corresponding to dental stop and another 'h' which represents the aspirated dental fricative in their L1. Since in English the letters 'th' are used to represent the voiceless dental fricative, therefore, there is a strong probability that the participants substituted the fricative with the stop under the influence of orthography. The influence of orthography on production is already attested in literature (Bassette 2009, Erdener & Burnham 2005, Escudero & Wanrooij 2010, Nicol & Barker 2010, Hayes-Harb et. al 2010, LaCharite & Paradis, 2005, etc.). Another probability is that the learners perceive the existence of frication in the input i.e. [!]; however, since they cannot produce the dental fricative, they substitute it with a stop but to compensate for the loss of frication they add aspiration. This is because of the fact that acoustically, frication and aspiration are similar.9 However, this is a mere hypothesis which needs confirmation. In summary, the participants of this study perceived English dental fricatives mostly as labial fricatives but produced them as stops. Now the results are analyzed using classical Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 2004). The L2 phonemic inventory of Pakistani learners does not have dental fricatives. We shall reflect this using a constraint *[! "]. This is an extension of the constraint *C (Tesar & Smolensky, 1996). *C resists the existence of a specific phoneme in a particular language e.g. *[p] in Arabic, etc. The substitution of dental fricatives with labio-dental fricatives is ascribed to a constraint ACOUSTIC CORRESPONDENCE (Wester, Gilbert & Lowie, 2007) which demands that the output should be acoustically the same as the input. The faithfulness constraint CORRESPONDENCE is active in the L2 grammar of the learners in different forms. CORRESPONDENCE demands that output is identical to the input. Explaining the CORRESPONDENCE constraint Wester, Gilbert & Lowie (2007: 485) comment: [f] is the most similar segment to [!] from an acoustic viewpoint: [f] and [!] are acoustically (and thus perceivably) surprisingly similar and are hard to differentiate in a non-semantic context. This implies that when [!] is ruled out by a MARKEDNESS constraint, maximal acoustic CORRESPONDENCE will demand [f] to be used as the realisation of [!]. The substitution of dental fricatives with other consonants in the current context is a result of interaction between the markedness constraint *C and the faithfulness constraint CORRESPONDENCE. The following rankings reflect the perception of most of the participants. (5) *[! "], CORRESPONDENCE [continuant], ACOUSTIC CORRESPONDENCE >> CORRESPONDENCE [COR], CORRESPONDENCE [strident] 10 /! "/ [! "] [s z]
9

*!/*" *!

CORRESPONDENCE

[continuant]

ACOUSTIC CORRESPONDENCE

CORRESPONDENCE

[COR], [strident] 11 *

*!

That is why in some phonological theories, like Element Theory (Backley 2011, Harris 1994), frication and aspiration are represented with the same element i.e. H. 10 For those few participants who perceived English dental fricatives as coronal fricatives the CORRESPONDENCE [COR] will be ranked higher than ACOUSTIC CORRESPONDENCE and the overall ranking will be *[! "], CORRESPONDENCE [continuant], CORRESPONDENCE [COR] >> ACOUSTIC CORRESPONDENCE, CORRESPONDENCE [strident] 11 Due to space problem the constraint CORRESPONDENCE [strident] is not written separately. This is a low ranked constraint in the grammar of the learners which does not play any significant role in the current context.

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☞ [f v]

* *! *!
*! *

[t! d !] [x #]

The most faithful candidates [! "] lose for violating *[! "]. The learners also preserve the feature [+continuant] losing the place feature [COR] in that they perceive dental fricatives as labio-dental continuant. This shows that the constraint CORRESPONDENCE [COR] is low ranked in the perception ranking. The candidates [t! d ! ] violate CORRESPONDENCE [continuant] and the velar [x #] lose because they are not acoustically similar to the input so they violate the constraint ACOUSTIC CORRESPONDENCE. Therefore, [f v] emerge as the most optimal candidates. As the results of the study show, the learners have different rankings for the perception and production of English dental fricatives [! "]. They perceive [! "] as fricatives but produce them as stops, which means that CORRESPONDENCE [COR] is inviolable in their production grammar. The constraint rankings for production of voiceless and voiced phonemes are also different from each other since the learners add aspiration to the voiceless stop but no such thing occurs with voiced dental fricative ["]. As hypothesized earlier, the learners perceive frication in [!] in the input and compensate for it by adding aspiration to the output. If this hypothesis holds, it means that the constraint CORRESPONDECE FRICATION sits higher in the grammar of the learners. It strengthens the SLM point of view that L2 learners perceive sounds on account of their phonetic properties. The following ranking reflects the substitution of voiceless fricative with voiceless aspirated stop. (6) *[!], CORRESPONDENCE [COR], CORRESPONDENCE FRICATION >> CORRESPONDENCE [strident] /!/ [!] [s] [f] [t! ] h ☞ [t! ] *[!] *! *! *! *! * *
CORRESPONDENCE

CORRESPONDENCE CORRESPONDENCE

[distributed], [continuant],

CORRESPONDENCE

CORRESPONDENCE

[COR, distributed]

FRICATION

[continuant, strident]

The above tableau shows that the most faithful candidate is defeated for violating a highly ranked constraint *[!] whereas [s] and [f] lose because the former violates CORRESPONDENCE [distributed] and the latter violates CORRESPONDENCE [COR]. Candidate 4 i.e. [t! ] loses because it does not obey the constraint CORRESPONDENCE FRICATION which is also highly ranked. The input [!] has frication whereas [t! ] lacks it. Therefore, the laurels go to [t! h] which emerges as the most optimal candidate. However, we have to differentiate between frication and the feature [+continuant]. The former is a phonetic phenomenon and the latter is a phonological feature. The learners lose a phonological feature but compensate for it by producing an output which is phonetically similar to the input. The following ranking reflects the substitution of ["] with [d ! ].

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(7) *["], CORRESPOND [COR, distributed] >> CORRESPOND [continuant, strident] /"/ ["] [z] [v] ☞ [d ! ] *" *! *! *! * *
CORRESPONDENCE CORRESPONDENCE

[COR, distributed]

[continuant, strident]

The place feature CORONAL and its dependent [distributed] sit higher than CORRESPONDENCE [continuant] so the dental stop [d ! ] emerges as the most optimal candidate because [z] is defeated on account of a fatal violation of CORRESPONDENCE [distributed] and [v] loses for violating CORRESPONDENCE [COR]. The successful candidate only violates CORRESPONDENCE [continuant] which is lower ranked in the production grammar of the learners. 6. Conclusion This study reported on an experiment with a group of advanced Pakistani learners of English. Perception and production test results show that Pakistani learners perceive English dental fricatives as labial fricatives on account of acoustic cues but produce them as stops under the influence of Pakistani English. This shows that the learners have two parallel constraint rankings for perception and production, one of which is based on the phonetic nature of the target sounds and the other is based on phonological features. The findings of the study pose a challenge to the speech learning model, which claims a correspondence between the perception and production of L2 learners. It points out a gap in the SLM, that it is only a phonetics-based model, whereas the current study demonstrates that both phonetic and phonological factors interact in the grammar of L2 learners. This suggests a revision in the model by incorporating phonological factors besides phonetic factors into it. References Archibald, J. (1998). Second language phonology . Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Archibald, J. (2005). Second language phonology as redeployment of phonological features. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 50 (1-4), 1000-1030. Backley, P. (2011). An introduction to element theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Bassetti, B. (2009). Effects of adding inter-word spacing on Chinese reading: a comparison of Chinese native readers and English readers of Chinese as a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 30(4), 757-775. Baumgardner, R. J. (1990). The indigenization of English in Pakistan. English Today, 6(1), 59-65. Baumgardner, R. J. (1993). The English Language in Pakistan: Oxford University Press. Bell, A. & Gibson, A. (2008). Stopping and Fronting in New Zealand Pasifika English. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 14(2), 44-53. Best, C. (1994). The emergence of native-language phonological influences in infants: A perceptual assimilation model. In Goodman, C. & Nasbaum, H. (eds.), The

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development of speech perception: The transition from speech sounds to spoken words, 167-224. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Best, C. (1995). A direct realist view of cross-language speech perception. In Strange, W. (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research, 171-204. Timonium MD: York Press. Boersma, P. (2009). Cue constraints and their interactions in phonological perception and production. In Boersma, P. & Hamann, S. (eds.), Phonology in perception, 55-110. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Boersma, P. & Hamann, S. (2009). Introduction: models of phonology in perception. In Boersma, P. & Hamann, S. (eds.), Phonology in perception, 1-24. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2012). Praat: doing phonetics by computer. Brown, C. (1998). The role of the L1 grammar in the L2 acquisition of segmental structure. Second Language Research, 14(2), 136-193. Brown, C. (2000). The interrelation between speech perception and phonological acquisition from infant to adult. In Archibald, J. (ed.), Second language acquisition and linguistic theory, 4-63. Malden Mass: Blackwell. Clements, G. & Hume, E. (1995). The internal organization of speech sounds. In Goldsmith, J. (ed.), A handbook of phonological theory, 245-306. Oxford: Blackwell. Erdener, V. & Burnham, D. (2005). The role of audiovisual speech and orthographic information in non-native speech production, Language Learning, 55(2), 191-228. Escudero, P. & Wanrooij, K. (2010). Learning the phonological forms of new words: effects of orthographic and auditory input. Language and Speech, 53(3), 361-381. Flege, J. (1987). The production of ‘new’ and ‘similar’ phones in foreign language: evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal of Phonetics 15, 47-65. Flege, J. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In Strange, W. (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in crosslanguage research, 233-277. New York: Timonium, MD. Haque, A. (1993). The position and status of English in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Harris, J. (1994). English sound structure. Oxford: Blackwell. Hatten, D. (2009). Substitution patterns for English inter-dental fricatives by L1 Latin American Spanish speakers. Retrieved from http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hattem/Academic%20Research/Sample%20Research% 20Paper%20Substitution_Patterns_for_EnglishInterDental_Fricatives_(David_J_Hattem)_FINAL_ PAPER.pdf Hayes-Harb, R., Nicol, J., & Barker, J. (2010). Learning the phonological forms of new words: effects of orthographic and auditory input. Language & Speech, 53(3), 367381. LaCharite, D. & Paradis, C. (2005). Category Preservation and Proximity versus Phonetic Approximation in Loanword Adaptation. Linguistic Inquiry, 36(2), 223-258. Lombardi, L. (2003). Second language data and constraints on Manner: explaining substitutions for the English interdentals. Second Language Research, 19(3), 225-250. Mahboob, A. & Ahmar, N. (2004). Pakistani English: Phonology. In Schneider, E. (ed.), A Handbook of Varieties of English: A Multimedia Reference Tool, 1003-1015. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Prince, A. & Smolensky, P. (2004). Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Malden, MA & Oxford: Blackwell. Rahman, T. (1990). Pakistani English: The linguistic description of a non-native variety of English. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University.

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Rahman, T. (1991). Pakistani English: some phonological and phonetic features. World Englishes, 10(1), 83-95. Shackle, C. (1976). The Siraiki language of central Pakistan: A reference grammar. London: University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. Shackle, C. (2007). Urdu. In Cardona, G. & Jain, D. (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages, 315386. London: Routlege. Simon, E. (2009). Acquiring a new second language contrast: an analysis of the English laryngeal system of first language Dutch speakers. Second Language Research, 25(3), 377-408. Syed, N. (2011). Perception and production of consonants of English by Pashto speakers. The Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Peshawar, XIX(1), 119-146. Syed, N. (2013). Voice onset time for plosives in Saraiki: Implications for the acquisition of English aspiration contrast. EFL Annual Research Journal 2012 Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur 14, 1-15. Tesar, B. & Smolensky, P. (1996). Learnability in Optimality Theory. Retrieved from http://www.blutner.de/ot/dat/tes-smol_OTlearn-short.pdf Weinberger, S. (1997). Minimal segments in second language phonology. In James, A. & Leather, J. (eds.), Second Language Speech: Structure and Process, 263-311. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wester, F., Gilbers, D. & Lowie, W. (2007). Substitution of dental fricatives in English by Dutch L2 speakers. Language Sciences, 29(2-3), 477-491. Yildiz, Y. (2006). Age effects in the second language acquisition of English onset clusters by Turkish learners: An optimality theory account. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Essex.

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Nasir Abbas Lasbela University Uthal, Balochistan Pakistan [email protected]

HARMONIZING THE PASSIVE: A NEW CONSTRUCTIONS IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR* DOMINIC THOMPSON (University of Glasgow) CHRISTOPH SCHEEPERS (University of Glasgow) Abstract

PROPOSAL

FOR

PASSIVE

To describe a transitive event, the English language allows a choice of two Voices. The canonical form is the active-voice, and the alternative is passive-voice, which offers its own semantic and syntactic functions. The passive-voice can also be divided into two further variants: be-passives and get-passives. Though theories are numerous, literature falls short in describing the functions and uses of these two forms. Here we present a rethink of passive syntactic representation, simplifying its description under a single structural unit. The proposed pvP theory is a non-derivational account. It allows a simple explanation of the syntactic and semantic variation between the two passive-types, while accounting for the features that are shared by all passive forms. 1. Passive Syntax Recent descriptions of the passive construction have been shaped significantly by Chomsky’s (1981) analysis in which he views passives as being syntactic derivations of the canonical active-voice. For Chomsky, the passive is generated through a series of transformations that are triggered by Case and thematic-role (theta-role) requirements. In an active-voice construction (1), a transitive verb such as attack requires two arguments: a subject and an object complement. The subject is theta-marked as the Agent (the ‘doer’) of the action, and receives Nominative Case; while the object is theta-marked as Patient (the ‘undergoer’ of the action), and receives Accusative Case. 1) 2) A squirrel attacked Steve Steve was attacked by a squirrel

In a passive construction (2), Chomsky’s approach sees the passive auxiliary be inserted, and the main verb (attack) is said to display so-called ‘passive morphology’. This results in the suppression of the Agent theta-role, as well as the ability of the verb to assign Case to its object complement. This suppression means that when the object is generated in the syntactic structure, it is able to receive the thematic-role of Patient, but is unable to fulfil its requirement to also have Case. In order to be assigned a Case, the object must move upwards through the syntactic structure; it is merged in subject position, where nominative Case is applied. Importantly, the suppression of the Agent theta-role ensures that the moved object does not violate the theta-criterion by having two roles. The underlying structure of the be-passive, as assumed in the above discussion, is given in Figure 1.
*

This work was funded by ESRC grant RES-062-23-2009, awarded to Christoph Scheepers and Fernanda Ferreira. !

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Figure 1: Steve was attacked

Here, TP stands for ‘Tense Phrase’, equivalent to the ‘Inflection Phrase’ of earlier generative models; DP is a ‘Determiner Phrase’, usually consisting of a determiner plus a Noun Phrase (NP); t is a trace left by a constituent that has moved; VP is a ‘Verb Phrase’; vP is a ‘light Verb Phrase’, which is semantically impoverished and therefore is dependent on combination with some additional phrase to produce a meaning. The Agent of the action, who appears as the sentential subject in the active, is demoted to appear only in an optional adjunct. This is referred to as the by-phrase, or sometimes the agentive by-phrase to distinguish it from other by-initial adjuncts such as locatives. This initial conception of the passive-voice is explored further by Jaeggli (1986). In support of the idea that the subject position in the passive does not receive a theta-role, Jaeggli notes that it is possible for expletives to appear in subject position in passive constructions, such as in (3). 3) It was believed that John had left

Expletives are ungrammatical if they are used in positions that are necessarily assigned a theta-role, therefore the grammaticality of (3) is taken as evidence that the subject position does not receive one. Jaeggli conceptualises the theta-role and Case suppressions mentioned by Chomsky as “absorption”, further specifying that it is the passive bound morpheme -en that absorbs these features; specifically defining “absorption” as “assignment to a bound morpheme”. In practice, this ‘passive bound morpheme’, or participle suffix, is usually realised as -ed; in the literature, for ease of distinction, it is consistently referred to as -en. Jaeggli notes that the nonassignment of Case to the object does not hold cross-linguistically, citing languages such as Spanish and Italian as counter-examples, and concluding that Case in passive constructions requires language-specific options. With regard to the optional by-phrase in the passive, Jaeggli highlights that the nounphrase within is interpreted as having whatever thematic-role the passivized verb standardly assigns to its external argument; that is, the determiner-phrase (DP) in the by-phrase is not inevitably an Agent, but may also be a Source, Goal, Experiencer, etc. The theta-role reaches the DP within the by-phrase via “transmission”: once the bound morpheme -en absorbs the theta-role from the verb, it ‘transmits’ it to the prepositional-phrase, which in turn assigns it to the DP.

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Collins (2005) presents a departure from this generally accepted approach initiated by Chomsky. Rather than relying on transformations, Collins proposes an analysis that sees both active-voice and passive-voice as having the same underlying structure with regards to external argument structure. He asserts that the passive participle suffix (the bound morpheme -en in Jaeggli) does not differ from the past participle suffix, citing their identical morphology in English. Furthermore, neither suffix results in suppression or absorption of theta-roles or Case. To achieve a situation whereby the external argument merges in the same location in both active and passive constructions, Collins suggests that the passive involves “smuggling”. This entails the movement of a constituent ‘x’, held within a larger constituent ‘y’, across a potential barrier to x. He introduces a Part-Phrase (PartP), containing the participle and direct object; all of which, in the passive, raises to a second new phrase, Voice-Phrase (VoiceP), which has by as its head. In terms of the passive by-phrase, Collins objects to the situation in Jaeggli’s approach whereby theta-role assignment to the external argument (via ‘transmission’) is entirely different in the passive versus the active. In place of theta-transmission, Collins treats by as a “dummy-preposition”. The preposition exists only to allow the inclusion of an Agentcontaining adjunct; the preposition by, when used in the passive, does not possess interpretable features. Collins contrasts this with other uses of by, such as locative constructions, in which the preposition does possess interpretable semantic features. Ahn & Sailor (2010) build on Collins with a slight revision of the VoiceP. They note that there are two previous independent instantiations of VoiceP: the first is from Kratzor (1996), who has VoiceP as both the merging point for external arguments, and the assigner of a theta-role to that external argument; the second is that of Collins described above, where VoiceP is a phrase that assists in the formation of the passive, and is absent from the active. Ahn and Sailor combine these concepts, having VoiceP present in all voices; active, passive, and middle. They hold that passives are not derived from an underlying active-voice sentence, concluding that there is no “default” voice. However, the generation of the passive still calls for an additional phrase, FP, that is not present in the active. While they note several clear problems with their analysis (related to the motivation for various constituent movements and feature-checks within the VoiceP), the authors maintain their proposal’s central quality of having a single phrase to motivate all grammatical voices. Something notably absent from all of these approaches is any distinction between the two variant passive forms; be and get. It has even been explicitly stated by some (e.g. Quirk et al. 1972, Stein 1979, Chomsky 1981) that these two forms are structurally identical and interchangeable. It will, however, become clear that passive get is distinct from the ‘standard’ be both syntactically and semantically, through precisely how is a matter of debate. 2. Get-Passive Syntax Some of the first authors to include the get-passive in their discussions (e.g. Quirk et al. 1972, Stein 1979) analysed the two passive-types as structurally identical, with a simple choice between alternative auxiliaries; be and get. The first syntactic analysis of the passive seeking to differentiate these two forms comes from Haegeman (1985). She begins by refuting the earlier belief that be and get are syntactically equivalent in the passive, both functioning as auxiliaries. She achieves this simply by demonstrating that get fails all standard linguistic tests for determining auxiliary status. These tests involve the observable syntactic behaviour of auxiliary and lexical verbs in specific structural contexts. Auxiliary verbs are able to combine with the negative contraction -n’t (4); can undergo subject-auxiliaryinversion (5); and they may be stranded in instances of VP-deletion (6).

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4) 5) 6)

She wasn’t hired / *She gotn’t hired Was she hired? / *Got she hired? She was hired and her friend was too / *She got hired and her friend got too

In all of these contexts, any lexical verb will be ungrammatical; this clearly includes passive get. To make the formation of these structures possible with any lexical verb, support must be provided by the ‘dummy-operator’ do (7); passive get clearly falls into this category. 7) She didn’t get hired / Did she get hired? / She got hired and her friend did too

Having shown the non-equivalence of the two passive-types, Haegeman proposes that get is an ergative lexical verb that takes a passive “small-clause complement,” resulting in the following surface structure: 8) Johni got ti killed ti

In being ergative, get is not equipped to assign Case, so when John moves in an attempt to satisfy its Case requirement, it is unable to do so after the first move, therefore moving again to Specifier of TP ([Spec,TP]; subject position), where it can receive Case from T (Tense-Phrase). Ergative get also has no Agent !-role to assign, ensuring the DP does not receive two !-roles. The resulting nature of the get-passive is “partly” passive “through the presence of passive morphology on the participle” (Haegeman 1985: 70) and is also ergative, due to get being an ergative verb. In assuming that get is not an auxiliary verb, it follows that get does not raise to T; thus with get and be occupying different nodes in the tree structure, their syntactic differences are easily explained. One notable development of Haegeman’s approach comes from Fleisher (2008), who introduces an additional phrase, vPpass, into the passive structure. The primary motivation for this revision comes from the following comparison of grammaticality: 9) 10) They were all arrested *They got all arrested

Sportiche (1988) gives a “stranding” analysis of quantifier float; that is, stranded quantifiers are grammatical when merged in the position of an intermediate trace (a position through which a DP has moved). This is the case in (9). The fact that (10) is judged to be ungrammatical indicates the absence of a trace position in which to merge the quantifier all. Furthermore, this missing intermediate position is conspicuously present in the get-causative construction, as seen from the presence of the DP them in (11). 11) He got them arrested

It is these previously unexplained differences that provoke Fleisher to revise Haegeman’s earlier analysis and to structurally discriminate between the get-passive and the get-causative constructions. Fleisher’s solution is to propose that get is not head of a verbphrase (VP), as is typically believed, but rather it is head of a passive vP (vpass). This newly postulated phrase takes a VP complement. He states that by get merging “directly as the

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functional head vpass”, no position is left available between get and arrested for the object to move through, thereby accounting for the ungrammaticality of (10). The underlying structure as described by Fleisher is reproduced in Figure 2. Figure 2: They got arrested

(Fleisher 2008) The contraction of the embedded VP [arrested, ti] (i.e. not including a V’ level) appears to account for the discrepancy between the examples in (9) and (10), since it eliminates the DP landing site between get and the main verb. The proposal of a vPpass however, does not significantly add to the analysis. Uniting the VP headed by get and the vP headed by be as two instances of the vPpass, is primarily a notational alteration. It provides no better explanation for the differing syntactic behaviour of get and be in passive constructions, nor does it lend any assistance in explaining the semantic dissonance across the two forms. Furthermore, despite assuming an analysis with get and be both merging as head of the same phrase (vPpass), it remains the case that get does not raise to T. Fleisher notes this simply as an idiosyncrasy. The causative, as exemplified in (11) above, also features the passive voice. Fleisher represents this as a null vPpass. He states that, in the causative, get is a full lexical verb heading a VP, and taking a vPpass as a complement. The syntactic tree for this structure is reproduced in Figure 3. Figure 3: He got them arrested

(Fleisher 2008)

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In Figure 3, the structure of the vPpass remains as it is in the get-passive, except that the head of the phrase is null. The direct object of arrested moves to [Spec,vPpass], but differs from the passive as it moves no higher. If the DP them is to remain in [Spec,vPpass] it must receive Case in that position: Fleisher suggests an instance of Exceptional Case Marking, either from get, or possibly from further up the structure via the vagent node. The theories discussed so far are classed as raising approaches. They involve deriving the passive-voice from the active via the raising of the active’s thematic Patient into subject position. Parallel to these there have been proponents of a possible control structure underlying the get-passive. Lasnik & Fiengo (1974) seem to be the originators of this train of thought. While they do not provide an explicit exploration of the get-passive, they do highlight features that indicate its controlling nature. It is not until Huang (1999) that the control approach is given deeper consideration. In Huang’s estimation, the get-passive is a subject-control verb; that is, a verb that forces the covert (unpronounced) subject of an embedded clause to refer to the subject of the matrix clause. This unpronounced element is referred to as PRO. Huang presents the get-passive and be-passive as very similar structurally. The primary difference is that in the be-passive, the Patient of the action is raised from direct object position to subject position of the matrix clause; while in the get-passive, the direct object is the null anaphoric pronoun, PRO. This means that the subject in a get-passive has not raised from direct object position; instead PRO necessarily refers to the subject. This effectively places the subject simultaneously in direct object position. To exemplify, in (12) the direct object (the Patient) is the unpronounced PRO; this has raised to become subject of the embedded clause. John is the subject of the matrix clause, which is necessarily coreferenced with PRO (this implies an interpretation along the lines of John got himself killed). Compare this with the be-passive, as analysed by Haegeman (1985) above, and maintained by Huang (13). 12) 13) Johni got PROi killed ti Johni was ti killed ti

Huang states that this structural difference accounts for differences between the getpassive and be-passive as given in (14) and (15), and that such differences are equal to those recognized between general raising and control constructions, as in (16) and (17), in the case of subject-oriented adverbs. 14) 15) 16) 17) *John was cheated intentionally John got cheated intentionally *John is intentionally likely to win John is intentionally eager to win

The sentence in (14) does sound odd. However, we do not believe that this is due to a structural difference; it is likely to be due to the semantic interaction between cheated and intentionally: the implicit Agent would be unable to accidentally cheat John. In terms of syntax, it is comparable to the pair given in (18) and (19). 18) John was shot intentionally

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19)

John got shot intentionally

The sentence in (18) does not sound ill-formed as ‘shooting’ can occur either intentionally or accidentally, and therefore the adverb’s presence is justified, and not superfluous as in (14). The reason (15) is acceptable may be that a ‘causative-reflexive’ reading is possible, wherein John chose to get cheated by some unnamed party. Although for both sentences in (18) and (19) a reading is available in which some unnamed party purposely shot John, it is only in (19) that this ‘causative-reflexive’ reading is additionally possible. Contrary to Fleisher’s approach, in which distinct representations are given to the passive and causative instantiations of get, Huang proposes a far more intimate relation between the structures. His analysis of the causative is that it fully contains the complete getpassive structure as “the complement of a causative VP shell” (Huang 1999). 20) Mary [e] Johni got PROi killed ti

The ‘causative VP shell’ is composed of an additional DP (the ‘causer’ of the action), plus an empty verb node; “Mary [e]”. Appending this to the get-passive, as in (12) above, produces the intermediate stage given in (20). From this stage, the verb get is attracted up and in to the empty verb node, which results in the final form given in (21). 21) Mary got Johni PROi killed ti

Although this analysis seems economical specifically for the get-passive and getcausative constructions, it does not appear to generalize to other instances of the causative. Consider sentences of the type given in (22) and (23). 22) 23) Mary wanted John blamed for the mistake (by Bill) Mary saw John blamed for the mistake (by Bill)

These sentences exhibit the same structure as the get-causative construction in (21). They differ in that the matrix verbs want and see cannot form the simple passive. Consequently there seems to be no motivation for assuming that these verbs initially merge lower in the structure before raising to their final positions. The embedded VP maintains its passiveness irrespective of where the matrix verb is initially merged. This being the case, we propose it is more likely that want and see each merge directly as head of the matrix VP. In support of this, notice that both be and get are able to merge in the position that want or see would have raised from. 24) 25) Mary wanted John to be/to get blamed for the mistake (by Bill) Mary saw John be/get blamed for the mistake (by Bill)

It is clear that want or see could not have raised from the embedded VP, as that VP is already headed by a separate verb. Further generalizing the idea that verbs such as want or see do not raise out of an embedded passive VP would allow causative get to remain independent of the passive, merging directly as the matrix verb. Such a generalization is clearly supported by the fact that causative get can acceptably combine with passive get or passive be:

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26)

Mary got John to be/to get killed

The form in (26) that contains both instances of get may seem slightly degraded or dispreferred, but this is likely to come from the repetition of the get lexeme. Regardless, this suggests that causative and passive get do not have as close a relationship as Huang claims. Butler & Tsoulas (2006) argue in favour of Huang’s proposal. The authors cite Alexiadou (2005) as noting that the reflexive reading of the passive is only possible with get. They suggest that this can be accounted for if get realizes a control structure of the sort developed in Huang (1999). They note further that “it is frequently possible to paraphrase control structures with a reflexive pronoun in place of PRO” (Butler & Tsoulas 2006). While the get-passive does have the ability to project a reflexive interpretation, similar to ‘classic’ subject-control verbs such as want, they fail to note that get is also able to give a nonreflexive reading equal to that of the be-passive. Recently, Reed (2011) has argued that the structure of get-passives is in fact ambiguous, having three variant forms. These include a “verbal passive” (this is the raising passive discussed above, as found in Quirk et al. 1972, Stein 1979, Haegeman 1985, Fleisher 2008); a “control structure”; and an adjectival passive (from Fox & Grodzinsky 1998). Discussions of the get-passive construction have taken several paths. They can assume a raising or control structure, an adjectival passive, or some combination of these. However, get’s counterpart, the be-passive, is universally treated the same in these analyses. All authors treat the syntactic structure of the be-passive in much the same way as Chomsky (1981), providing no notable revisions. The assumption is always that get, as an intruder into the domain of the passive, is the only variant that requires attention or reanalysis. 3. Passive Semantics and Function Linguists have typically treated the passive as a derivative of the canonical activevoice. However passive constructions stand in parallel, serving certain purposes less available or entirely unavailable to the active-voice. While some (e.g. Weiner & Labov 1998) have suggested that both be-passives and get-passives are semantically equivalent in general, the majority consider them distinct. 3.1 Passive Function As noted by Keenan & Dryer (2006), passives allow focus to be concentrated on a specific element, in a way very similar to other topicalizing constructions such as clefting. What this means for the passive is that the object in a described event is elevated above other elements in terms of its relative importance; that is, its syntactic prominence is utilised in communicating some form of significance. Further to this, passives allow the backgrounding of another element: the subject of the active, typically the Agent of the described action. This reduction of focus or importance can be achieved by “relegating it to the status of an oblique NP” (Keenan & Dryer 2006), that is, by consigning the agent of the action to a by-phrase, as in Mary was hired by the manager. Focus can be further depleted by completely removing the by-phrase, and therefore any explicit mention of the agent, as in Mary was hired. Several other notable functional aspects of the passive are highlighted by Keenan and Dryer. First, they can function alongside other “foregrounding constructions”, for example, allowing clefting of a passivized sentence. This implies a semantic non-equivalence of the passive and functionally similar constructions. Second, and related to this, passives are generally better integrated into the grammar than topicalizations and dislocations, which “tend to be limited to main clauses”. Finally, they point to an important absence of distinction

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between active-voice and passive-voice constructions in terms of noun-phrase positions and Case marking. The foregrounded NP in a passive (the thematic Patient) appears in the same sentential location and the same Case as the subject in active-voice sentences, as does the NP within the passive by-phrase. The authors note this is also true in other languages that differ in terms of word order. Following from their functional observations, the authors make some useful broad comments regarding the passive. They note that “in general in a language, what is distinctive about the observable form of passives is localized within the predicate or verb phrase”, and that “in examining passives in different languages, one should look for ways of forming verb phrases, not ways of modifying sentences to yield other sentences”. Many authors have sought to characterize the semantic and functional differences of the two passive-types. This has primarily taken the form of specifying the contexts in which the get-passive is or is not allowed, and consideration of features unique to the get-passive. 3.2 Transitivity Perhaps the earliest functional consideration of the get-passive comes from Hatcher (1949), who states that the Agent in the get-passive holds a subordinate role; which implies that it is not subordinate in the be-passive. Although this specific suggestion is not found in other functional or semantic literature, it does appear to be supported by some corpus data, which reveals a correlation between be-passive and by-phrase inclusion. Arrese (1999) provides an approach that is somewhat compatible with the above. The author arranges a variety of get and be constructions within a multi-dimensional semantic space. One of these dimensions is ‘degree of transitivity’. Within the several get constructions, Arrese allocates the get-passive a relatively low transitivity; however, the be-passive has the highest transitivity within the be constructions. Since a transitive event involves two protagonists, having a low perceived transitivity could serve as the motivation for less inclusion of by-phrases in get-passives. This is contrary to Cameron (1990), who states that the get-passive is semantically more transitive than the be-passive. For Palmer (1974), get communicates an action as well as the state that results from it. Again, this suggests a strong transitivity or change of state. Others have suggested that get-passives occur only with dynamic events (e.g. Cheshire 2005). Sasaki (1999) also notes that the get-passive focuses on the described action, but may sometimes communicate a “statal passive”. However, Alexiadou (2005) believes the getpassive is not permitted with stative verbs such as know, and cannot form an adjectival passive. Contrary to this, our own quick searches using Google reveal both to be in use. For stative verbs, a search for the precise string “got known by” reveals numerous tokens, even for this specific verb and tense combination, including “He got known by famous people”, “Bucket got known by every single [Guns ‘n’ Roses] fan”, “Kyonka quickly got known by the Hamburg techno scene”, “[he]!started doing parties around Arlington and then got known by the community people”, “Balestrini got known by a larger public”, etc. As for adjectival passives, searching for the string “got angered at” again returns many tokens, despite the highly constrained collocation. Results include: “[I] got angered at the slightest incident”, “He got angered at this”, “She got angered at the thought”, “Squall got angered at Anthony's arrogance”, “his teacher got angered at the poor performance”, etc. 3.3 Affectedness Another dimension in Arrese’s (1999) proposed semantic space encodes voice distinctions, established via the status of the subject as controller of the action or as the

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affected entity. Here, get-passives and be-passives are on more equal terms: both are weighted towards having an affected subject. This suggests that the difference between these two passive forms comes from their relative transitivity, while the degree to which the subject is affected by the event (how Patient-like the subject is) is more or less constant. The term ‘affected’ is not used consistently in the literature, but generally, if an entity is affected, it is conceptualised as undergoing some experience resulting from the action described by the main verb. Contrary to Arrese (1999) discussed above, many authors, such as Sasaki (1999), do not believe the two passive forms communicate an equal degree of affectedness; instead they believe that the get-passive suggests greater subject affectedness. For instance, Carter & McCarthy (1999) suggest that the get-passive has a tendency to focus on the event itself, and how the event impacts the patient. Cameron (1990) suggests that it is not sufficient for the Patient to simply be affected; rather they must be “materially affected”. Corpus data from Downing (1996), however, gives evidence against this, providing examples such as (27). 27) ...people who don’t get loved or taken care of

Orfitelli (2011) goes as far as to claim that “the ‘affectedness’ requirement is so strong that predicates that do not affect their internal argument are typically illicit with the getpassive, although they are allowed in the be-passive.” The author exemplifies this through the sentences in (28) and (29). 28) 29) Freddie was kicked / seen by Flossie Freddie got kicked / *seen by Flossie

This judgement of acceptability is not universally shared. In fact, cursory interrogation of English corpora (such as COCA, Corpus of Contemporary American English, or BNC, British National Corpus) reveals that the get-passive construction is in common use with ‘non-affected’ verbs, including the specific verb in Orfitelli’s example. A search conducted in COCA for “[get] seen” (meaning “lemma GET immediately preceding the exact form seen”), gives results that include “14 billion videos get seen on YouTube every month”, “it might make it slightly easier for me to get seen”, “it would not get seen by anyone”, etc. For this specific and highly constrained search, 34 tokens were returned. Results are comparable for numerous other ‘non-affected’ verbs. 3.4 Adversity The passive is often associated with negative events. It has been shown that, in the media, the passive (irrespective of passive-type) is often chosen over the active when describing acts of violence (Henley et al. 1995). However, Frazer & Miller (2009) claim that the relationship between voice-selection and event-type is not this simple, showing that when violence is perpetrated by women against men, the active-voice is actually preferred. This suggests that the passive does more than simply report negativity, encoding more complex event semantics. One widely shared conceptualisation of get-passive semantics is that it communicates a sense of adversity. For some, adversity refers only to events with negative outcomes, for example Sawasaki (2000), who also states that this tendency is particularly apparent with human participants.

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While Carter & McCarthy (1999) also suggest the get-passive communicates adversity, they specify that the adversity is interpreted by the speaker, not necessarily the actual Patient of the action. For other authors, adversity is not so narrowly defined; it is understood to equally describe both positive and negative outcomes (Chappell 1980, Sussex 1982, Siewierska 1984, Givon 1993, Gronemeyer 1999, Sasaki 1999). The adversity may arise due to some perceived struggle; as McIntyre (2005) describes it, the get-passive “suggests that the result is hard to attain”. Sussex (1982) suggests that, although get-passives can communicate both negative and positive events, negative get-passives have more semantic flexibility. 3.5. Patient Responsibility Another commonly identified semantic feature of the get-passive is its ability to communicate responsibility on the part of the subject; the Patient of the action. Numerous authors note this implication of initiative, control, or responsibility (among many others, Hatcher 1949, Lakoff 1971, Barber 1975, Givon & Yang 1994, Downing 1996, Sasaki 1999). Relatedly, Vanrespaille (1991) suggests that ‘resultativeness’ is a primary feature of the getpassive, and that the subject is at least partly responsible. Arrese (1997) also notes at least “partial responsibility” of the Patient. Sussex (1982) claims that get-passives can imply a wide variety of meanings, including varying degrees of purposefulness, blame, and responsibility. The semantics of control are conceptualised by Lasnik & Fiengo (1974) in a more complementary manner between the get-passive and be-passive. The authors claim to show that when a passive sentence is formed with get, Patient control is assumed; when the same sentence is formed with be, Agent control is assumed. For example, in (30) it is assumed to be John’s intention to cause the event; while in (31), the event is Mary’s intention. 30) 31) John got fouled by Mary on purpose John was fouled by Mary on purpose

Similar examples are provided by Givon (1993). According to Cameron (1990), the responsibility of the subject in the get-passive comes from an association with causative get, not from some inherent feature of get-passive semantics. Hatcher (1949) makes a similar claim, suggesting however that the responsibility is extended from the more explicit responsibility in reflexive get constructions. 3.6. Subject and Object Animacy The subject (Patient) of a get-passive can be either animate or inanimate (Chappell 1980), while human subjects are most commonly found with get-passives (Sasaki 1999). Sasaki goes further than this, claiming that the subject of a get-passive must be in existence before the described action. As such, the author believes a sentence of the type in (32) to be ungrammatical, though this is not supported by corpus data. 32) The letter got written

This is compatible with the suggestion of Carter & McCarthy (1999) that the getpassive holds interpersonal meaning, which they believe motivates its greater likelihood in dialogues.

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Complementary to the humanness of the Patient, Hatcher (1949) suggests the byphrase Agent is likely to be inanimate or “non-identifiable”, and when a human Agent is present, they have a “low degree of individualization”. For Sussex (1982), however, Agent humanness is another factor that increases the semantic flexibility of get-passives. 3.7. Reflexivity For Sussex (1982), the potential reflexivity of the get-passive also increases its semantic flexibility. It is noted by Givon & Yang (1994) that a reflexive or reciprocal sense is only possible when the passive is formed with get. Alexiadou (2005) simply notes that the get-passive is “compatible with reflexive action”. 4. The pvP Theory In the preceding sections we have discussed existing approaches to passivization in English. This has included considerations of the passive versus the active, and of the getpassive versus the be-passive. All of the authors who have examined the syntax of the passive agree on the basics of the be-passive structure, while each offering a different analysis of the get-passive. These analyses of passive get not only differ from author to author, but are consistently distinguished structurally from the be-passive. Despite all forms of the passive having several semantic and syntactic features in common, no theory thus far is able to give a simple or unified account of this collection of constructions. Each syntactic approach necessitates a number of distinct underlying representations to describe the various passive-types, along with assorted caveats to ensure there are no violations of established principles or conditions. The semantics of the passive forms also raise debate. There is no suggestion in the literature that clearly describes a central meaning of each, and no approach that appears to account for both the differences and similarities between the get-passive and be-passive, nor for the differences in their degree of variability. In order to harmonize this situation, a new approach is clearly required. All the passive forms share several attributes, from the canonical be-passive to the partial passive in causative constructions. For example, in all forms the main verb has the same inflection; the clausal subject is interpreted as the Patient of the action; and the inclusion of an agentive by-phrase is optional. These can be seen in example (33). 33) The cat was seen (by the dog) The cat got seen (by the dog) The mouse wanted the cat seen (by the dog)

From the above it can be seen that the actual usage of the various passive forms is more consistent than one would guess based on any given theory discussed in previous sections. There are clearly differences between the forms too. In this paper we are considering two of the variants; be-passives and get-passives. As we have detailed above, these differences include syntactic ones (e.g. question formation) and semantic ones (e.g. Patient responsibility or control). Any new approach to the passive must seek to account for these commonalities as well as the variations between each form. This is what we aim to do in the approach discussed here.

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4.1. A new syntactic approach 4.1.1. The basics We begin by assuming ‘the passive’ is a self-contained unit within a passive sentence. It is the same in each instance of the passive, whether it is formed with be or get, or is part of a causative construction. In terms of syntax, this unit is a specific phrase that can be merged as a verbal argument; that is, it functions as an object of a verb. We have termed this unit the pvP or passive light-verb Phrase. The head of this phrase, the pv0, contains the passive lightverb, which is phonetically null and represented as ‘ø’. The pv0 node forms a complex predicate with a Verb Phrase (VP) headed by the main lexical verb, which displays pastparticiple (or so-called ‘passive’) morphology. The direct object of the primary verb, in all cases of the passive, is the phonetically null anaphor PRO. The use of PRO is well established in generative grammar, appearing as the unpronounced subject of infinitive clauses, as in (34). 34) John wanted PRO to go to town

In (34), PRO is co-indexed with (necessarily refers to) the preceding DP, John. In the case of the pvP, the PRO is also co-indexed with the preceding DP: in simple passives this is the matrix subject, while in causatives it is the embedded DP. We will return to this shortly. The pvP remains insular all the way up to surface-structure. In order to satisfy the Extended Projection Principle (that all clauses must have a subject), the direct object PRO raises to specifier of pvP (the subject position of the pvP), and moves no higher. This means that, unlike in existing theoretical approaches (including Haegeman 1985, Huang 1999, Butler & Tsoulas 2006, Fleisher 2008, Reed 2011), the matrix subject is always a discrete DP (i.e. it does not raise from direct object position). The pvP exhibits structural consistency through all passive forms, with the passivized verb, V0, being the only variable. The ‘passivized verb’ is the verb that undergoes passivization, i.e. is morphologically marked as Past Participle, and whose thematic object is displaced. The bare syntactic structure of the pvP is detailed in Figure 4. Figure 4: Bare structure of the pvP

This unit, the pvP, is the core of the syntactic model we are proposing, with implications for both the syntax and semantics of the various passive forms. Below we will discuss the pvP as it appears within each of these passive constructions. We aim to demonstrate both the simplicity with which each is built around this core phrase, and the notable consistency of the structures.

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4.1.2. The Causative: A ‘Double-Complement Passive’ Frequently there is no phonologically explicit passive auxiliary in the causativepassive construction, though ‘passiveness’ is certainly present. For instance, the DP Mary in (35) is interpreted as the semantic, or thematic, object of the verb kill, though it appears in a higher position. 35) John wanted Mary killed

This absence of an explicit passive auxiliary (e.g. get or be) has motivated the various and divergent approaches (see especially Fleisher 2008). However, taking the pvP as a constituent generates a simple state of affairs. In a causative construction such as (35), the verb want selects three arguments: a subject, the DP John; and two complements, the DP Mary, and the pvP PROi killed ti. The anaphoric PRO necessarily refers to the preceding DP, Mary. The structure for (35), as interpreted under a pvP analysis is given in Figure 5. The dashed box denotes the passive portion of the structure; the pvP itself. Figure 5: Representation of John wanted Mary killed under a pvP analysis

The structure in Figure 5, here formed with want as the matrix verb, is possible with any of a small set of verbs occupying the matrix verb position, including see, have, want, expect, and get. Taking these verbs as forming a double-complement construction in the causative (selecting DP and pvP complements), allows a single account for the whole set of verbs (contrary to Huang 1999). All of these verbs that can appear as the matrix verb are not themselves passive; they all function the same as they do outside of causative or passive sentences. The only difference is that in this instance they have been combined with a pvP complement, rather than some other complement type. As such, we will refer to this type of passive as a ‘Double-Complement Passive’. Presently, we simply note that there are some

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verbs that can select a pvP complement, and other that cannot. While there may be some underlying constraints, it would be difficult to speculate on these in the present space limitations. However, leaving these constraints underspecified does not impact on the theoretical framework of the pvP as such, (similarly, leaving constraints on sub-categorisation underspecified does not speak against lexicalised theories of grammar.) In Huang’s approach (Huang 1999), the causative-passive is directly related to the getpassive, with get raising into a higher VP. This seems plausible in the case of get, however, as noted above, the causative-passive is possible with several verbs, of which it is only get that can form the simple passive. It is far more parsimonious to describe all of these verbs as behaving in a common manner: none of them are passive in themselves; the ‘passiveness’ of the sentence is generated through the inclusion of a pvP argument. 4.1.3. Be and Get: ‘Single-Complement Passives’ While get (among other verbs) selects three arguments in the causative, in the socalled ‘get-passive’ it selects two: a DP subject and a pvP complement, as shown in Figure 6. Again, the dashed box contains the pvP; the passive part of the structure. Figure 6: Representation of John got killed under a pvP analysis

As with the matrix verbs in the causative, get in Figure 6 is not passive, nor is it a passive auxiliary of any kind; it is the same lexeme that occurs in other transitive constructions. As above, the passiveness of the sentence comes from get selecting a pvP complement. This differs from the majority of existing approaches to the get-passive (e.g. Haegeman 1985, Fleisher 2008, Reed, 2011), in which get has some specific form that appears in the passive. Finally there is the case of the be-passive. This is the most widely agreed upon in structural terms, and is regarded in some sense as the ‘true passive’. In practice, this situation necessitates a multitude of additional structures to fully represent “the passive,” since the nature of this accepted version of be-passive structure is not capable of accounting for the syntax or semantics of other passive forms; the get-passive and causative constructions require their own unique structures.

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With the inclusion of the pvP as a constituent, the situation can once again be greatly simplified: the be-passive can be taken as an instantiation of copula be with a pvP complement, as shown in Figure 7. As before, the dashed box shows the structure’s passive section. Figure 7: Representation of John was killed under a pvP analysis

As with get, the lexeme be is not passive, nor is it a passive auxiliary; it simply belongs to a group of verbs that are able to take a pvP complement. To clarify, be is not a passive auxiliary, it is simply an auxiliary. Once again, it is the pvP that provides the passiveness of the sentence. For these types of passive we will use the term ‘SingleComplement Passive’. Since neither be nor get is a passive auxiliary, and only the former is an auxiliary of any kind, referring to them in such a way is misleading. With no alternative in the existing literature, we will use the term ‘passive verbal-complement’, or pvC. This term represents the fact that these lexemes are needed in the construction of a simple passive sentence (i.e. are complements), while avoiding any reference to ‘passive auxiliary’ status. Importantly, the structures in Figures (6) and (7) allow a minimal account of the syntactic differences noted from Haegeman and Fleisher. With both get and be existing entirely outside of a self-contained passive constituent (the pvP), the two verbs (pvCs) can continue to act as they do in all other non-passive sentences. That is to say, get is a full lexical verb heading a VP. On the other hand, be is an auxiliary verb, and as such can act as one in question formation, VP-ellipsis, etc. This approach also correctly predicts the variation in grammaticality noted above regarding the insertion of a quantifier, repeated in (36). The issue here is that a quantifier, such as all, can only appear grammatically in the location of a trace; a location from which a constituent has raised. In this case the constituent that has raised is They. 36) They were all arrested *They got all arrested

In the get-passive (that is, a single-complement passive as formed with the pvC get; see Figure 6), the only trace left by the subject lies above get in the structure. This means that

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a floated quantifier can only be placed above get (in the location of the trace), with no locations available below. In the single-complement passive with be, the subject leaves the same trace as in the single-complement get passive. A floating quantifier again only has one available location, but in this case the auxiliary verb be raises higher up the structure to T0 (as all auxiliaries do), thereby allowing the quantifier to follow be (see Figure 7). There are some types of sentences, as in (37), that may appear to be doublecomplement passives; however these are instances of the single-complement passive. 37) John wanted Mary to be killed

The infinitive form of be or get actually lies within an embedded clause; the TP-object of want. The resulting structure is comparable to sentences of the type in (38): 38) John wanted Mary to be happy John wanted Mary to be a teacher

Treating the pvP as a constituent that is able to be selected as an argument means that the sentences in (37) and (38) are structurally identical, as represented in Figure 8. Figure 8: Representation of John wanted Mary to be [A] under a pvP analysis

At point [A], various arguments can be merged: a DP such as a teacher; an AP such as happy; a PP such as at the front of the room; or a pvP such as PROi killed ti. When a pvP is selected, it is the only complement of the pvC (be in this example), and therefore, despite the apparent complexity of the overall structure, this is an instantiation of a single-complement passive. In a single-complement passive such as this, where the pvP lies within an embedded clause (as in 37), there are two possibilities regarding the embedded TP’s specifier (i.e. its

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subject position). It may be the case that the phonetically null subject of the pvP raises further to become specifier of the TP. Alternatively a separate PRO may merge in each position; that is, one within the pvP, and one within the TP. Either way, the empty categories form a coreferential chain, meaning that these positions all refer to the same entity, namely Mary. 4.2. A new semantic approach The approaches in the literature to the semantics of the passive, and more specifically, of the get-passive, have been diverse. As regards the role of the passive versus the active, we agree with the notion that the passive is one method that interlocutors can employ or note the salience of the Patient or to assign salience to the Patient of a described action (as noted for example by Keenan & Dryer 2006). This is true for both passive get and passive be. The majority of approaches to passive semantics consider what it is that get does, as opposed to what each of the pvCs (get and be) do; generally noting a function of the getpassive, while leaving its absence from the be-passive as implied. This in itself suggests a general consensus whereby the get-passive possesses functions supplementary to those possessed by the be-passive, rather than each having their own distinct or complementary functions. Furthermore, many authors, usually seeking features that are present in all instances of the get-passive, highlight just one or two features of the get-passive, and do so using highly specified examples to support their claims. These examples need to be so constrained because they only apply in certain circumstances; that is not to say they are incorrect, only that they are not universally applicable. Under the pvP analysis we do not claim that there is a prototypical meaning of the getpassive or argue for one or other of the existing proposals. Instead, we suggest how these various meanings are produced, and why the observed variability is possible with the getpassive. With the ‘passiveness’ of any given passive sentence contained wholly within the pvP unit, any verb selecting the pvP as a complement is free to behave as it does in non-passive constructions. That is, the two pvCs (get and be) are outside of the passive portion of the sentence. We have already discussed how this applies to the syntax of the passive, and we will now argue that it can equally be applied to passive semantics. As proposed above, the lexeme be in the passive is taken simply as copula be; it is an auxiliary. It functions analogous to a logical operator, roughly equivalent to an entailment sign. John is tall describes a situation in which John entails tall. In the same way, be describes a logical operation in which John entails a state wherein he has been killed: PROi killed ti. As an operator, be provides no additional information beyond stating that someone came to be in a certain situation. On the other hand, get is a lexical verb. It has a greater depth of meaning than be, since auxiliaries are purely functional, while lexical verbs also possess their own semantics. Furthermore, the lexical verb get is capable of communicating several independent meanings. Some authors have attempted to determine the ‘core’ meaning of the lexeme get. These have included ‘result’ (Forchini 2008), and ‘obtain’ or ‘receive’ (Johansson & Oksefjell 1996). With the pvP placing get outside of the passive portion of the syntactic structure, there is no need to distinguish a specific passive get from the several non-passive uses of get. This means that the semantics of the lexeme get apply equally regardless of whether it is used in passive or non-passive constructions. Though it is not our aim to explain how each and every interpretation of the getpassive can be derived, we will give two brief examples below. First, under the reading of ‘obtain’, as in John got a book from the shelf, or perhaps ‘achieve’, as in John got recognition, the reflexive interpretation of the get-passive can be

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communicated. That is, John got killed, with a reflexive reading, could roughly paraphrase as John obtained/achieved his own killing. The specific meaning is modulated by, among other things, the nature of the event. Nonetheless, get is able to provide the reflexive sense via one of its several accepted meanings. Second, the reading of get as ‘receive’, as in John got a shock, accounts for the ‘truly passive’ interpretation of the get-passive; that is, examples where the subject is a passive recipient of a described situation. This would include instances such as John got hit by a bus, where John has no prior knowledge of the event’s occurrence. Again, the exact interpretation can be altered, for example, by the semantics of the main verb or the context. The main point to be made in relation to get-passive semantics is that there are numerous meanings of get that can be utilised: in the passive, get is the same lexeme as it is in non-passive constructions, therefore it has the same semantic range to draw upon. The bepassive, however, is limited in this regard, being an auxiliary and carrying no additional associations. Essentially, the get-passive is more semantically flexible than the be-passive. This is accounted for in our proposed pvP theory by virtue of the two passive verbal complements (get and be) remaining outside of the passive structural unit. Unlike existing approaches, which assume there are individual passive forms of be and get, we assume that they are the same verbs that function elsewhere in the language. There are further implications of this. For example, using the option that has a greater semantic weight behind it allows a speaker to communicate an added degree of involvement, or perhaps empathy. It allows a speaker to demonstrate or encode that they sense some importance beyond a simple logical description of events. 5. Summary and Conclusions In this paper we highlighted the variety of approaches that have been proposed to deal with both the semantic and syntactic variations between the be-passive and other passive forms. We have demonstrated that the syntactic approaches not only conflict with one another, but that there is no approach that satisfactorily accounts for the several types of passive without recourse to numerous underlying structures and caveats. Likewise, the semantic accounts of the passive forms seek to propose some additional meaning for the getpassive, though without a conclusive answer. We have proposed a new analysis that aims to provide a more parsimonious account, uniting the various passive forms via a single common constituent. To achieve this we have postulated a phrasal constituent called a passive light-verb Phrase, or pvP, which is selected by certain verbs as an argument (in much the same way as an object is selected). The VP within the pvP contains a phonologically null anaphor (PRO) as its object, which raises into the pvP’s subject position. This PRO necessarily refers to the preceding DP. The pvP is headed by a null verb, ø. A set of verbs, both mono-transitive and di-transitive, are able to select a pvP argument; get and be are just two among this set. Neither get nor be is in fact passive, and neither one is a passive auxiliary, though be remains a ‘standard’ auxiliary, as it is in other constructions. This makes dedicated passive auxiliaries superfluous in our account. We have termed them passive verbal complements, or pvCs. Under the assumption of a pvP, be and get (the pvCs) exist outside of the passive segment of a passive sentence. This results in a situation where the motivations underlying the syntactic and semantic differences across these passive forms can be accounted for with the greatest degree of simplicity: the syntactic differences between be and get in question formation, their requirement or otherwise for dosupport, and so-on, are explained by virtue of get being a lexical verb and be being an auxiliary verb; just as they are in any other context. The structure also makes correct

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grammatical predictions regarding the insertion of floating quantifiers, as highlighted by Fleisher (2008). Likewise, the existing semantics of the lexemes get and be can account for their semantic dissonance when they are used in the passive. As an auxiliary, be acts as a simple entailment operator, adding nothing to the meaning beyond a logical relationship. However get is a lexical verb with several distinct meanings and numerous sets of connotations, allowing it to communicate far more than a simple entailment. This analysis identifies two categories of passives: single-complement passives, and double-complement passives. Within a given category, variation in both syntax and semantics can be attained through the use of different matrix verbs. That is, within the singlecomplement category, the mono-transitive verbs get and be can both be used as matrix verbs, selecting the pvP as their object. In the double-complement passive category, several ditransitive verbs can be employed as the matrix verb (such as want, need, etc.), selecting a pvP as one of their two required objects. The resulting structures are in fact active overall, but the presence of a pvP object allows a passive sense to be communicated. Syntactically, the pvP provides structural consistency across all passive forms: a single identical unit appears in all instances; and there is no need for different structures to capture the passiveness in each form. Furthermore, there is structural consistency between passive and non-passive constructions: passives are not derived from actives, rather they are a stand-alone option; also get and be stand outside of the passive unit, meaning that there is no need to explain their differing syntactic behaviour since it is already explained in general syntactic theory. Semantically, the passiveness of a sentence comes from the subject being understood as the thematic object of the main verb. In addition, since they are outside of the passive segment of the sentence, the differing semantics of get and be in the passive comes from the existing semantics of these verbs. This means the get-passive is more flexible than the bepassive, and can, on different occasions, assume many of the various semantic forms suggested in the literature. This theory is not exhaustive as regards the many features of passive sentences; indeed, at this point it only considers the English language. However, it does provide a new angle from which to view the several passive constructions. It serves to unite them in a far more parsimonious manner than any analysis that has so far been proposed. References Ahn, B. & Sailor, C. (2010). The Emerging Middle Class. Proceedings of CLS 46. Alexiadou, A. (2005). A note on non-canonical passives: the case of the get-passive. In Broekhuis, H., Corver, N., Huybregts, R., Kleinhenz, U. and Koster, J. (eds.), Organizing Grammar: Linguistic Studies in Honor of Henk van Riemsdijk, 13-21. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Arrese, J. (1999). Conceptualization of Events semantic relations between constructions and topology: a catastrophe theoretic study of "get" and "be". Journal of English Studies 1 ,97-118. Barber, E. (1975). Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 16-24. Butler, J. & Tsoulas, G. (2006). Get-passives, Raising, and Control. Unpublished paper. Cameron, C. (1990). The semantics and pragmatics of voice systems: A functional analysis. (PhD Dissertation, Rice University). Published 1994. Ann Arbour, MI: University Microfilms International.

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Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (1999). The English get-passive in spoken discourse: description and implications for an interpersonal grammar. English Language and Linguistics 3, 41-58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chafe, W. (1982). Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature. In D. Tannen (ed.), Spoken and written language, 1-16. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Chappell, H. (1980). Is the get!passive adversative? Research on Language & Social Interaction 13(3): 411-452. Cheshire, J. (2005). Syntactic variation and spoken language. Syntax and Variation: Reconciling the Biological and the Social, 81-120. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 81-106. Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Collins, C. (2005). A Smuggling Approach to the Passive in English. Syntax 8(2).81-120. Downing, A. (1996). The semantics of get-passives. In Hasan, R., Cloran, C. & Butt, D. (eds.), Functional descriptions: theory in practice, 179-205. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Fleisher, N. (2008). Passive get, Causative get, and the Phrasehood of Passive vP. Proceedings of CLS 41, 59-67. Forchini, P. (2008). The get-unit in Corpora of Spontaneous and Non-spontaneous Mediated Language: from Syntactic Versatility to Semantic and Pragmatic Similarity. In Taylor, C. (ed.), Ecolingua. The Role of E-corpora in Translation and Language Learning, 185-209. Trieste: EUT Edizioni Universitari. Fox, D. & Grodzinsky, Y. (1998). Children’s passive: a view from the by-phrase. Linguistic Inquiry 29, 311-332. Frazer, A. & Miller, M. (2009). Double Standards in Sentence Structure. Passive Voice in Narratives Describing Domestic Violence. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 28(1), 62-71. Givón, T. & Yang, L. (1994). The Rise of the English GET-passive. In Fox, B. and Hopper, P. (eds.), Voice: Form and Function, 119-149. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Givón, T. (Ed.). (1993). English grammar: A function-based introduction (Vol. 2). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Gronemeyer, C. (1999). On deriving complex polysemy: the grammaticalization of get. English Language and Linguistics 3(01), 1-39. Haegeman, L. (1985). The get-passive and Burzio’s Generalization. Lingua 66, 53-77. Hatcher, A. G. (1949). To get/be invited. Modern Language Notes, 433-446. Henley, N., Miller, M., & Beazley, J. (1995). Syntax, semantics, and sexual violence agency and the passive voice. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 14(1-2), 60-84. Huang, C.T.J. (1999). Chinese Passives in Comparative Perspective. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 29, 423-509. Jaeggli, O.A. (1986). Passive. Linguistic Inquiry 17(4):587-622. Johansson, S. & Oksefjell, S. (1996). Towards a unified account of the syntax and semantics of GET. In Thomas, J. & Short, M. (eds.), Using corpora for language research: Studies in honour of Geoffrey Leech, 57-75. London/New York: Longman. Keenan, E. & Dryer, M. (2006). Passives in the World’s Languages. Shopen, T. (ed.). Kratzer, A. (1996). Severing the external argument from its verb. In Rooryck, J. & Zaring, L. (eds.) Phrase Structure and the Lexicon, 109-137. Dordrecht, Kluwer. Lakoff, R. (1971). Passive Resistance. Papers from CLS 7, 49-61. Lasnik, H. & Fiengo, R. (1974). Complement Object Deletion. Linguistic Inquiry 5(4), 535571. McIntyre, A. (2005). The Semantic and Syntactic Decomposition of get: An interaction between verb meaning and particle placement. Journal of Semantics 22(4), 401-438.

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Orfitelli, R. (2011). Parsimony in Passivization: Lexically Defining the Core Characteristics of the Get-Passive. In Workshop on Non-canonical Passives, 23-25. University of Göttingen. Palmer, F. (1974). The English Verb. Longman, London. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartik, J. (1972). A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman. Reed, L. (2011). Get-Passives. The Linguistic Review 28(1), 41-78. Sasaki, K. (1999). The Semantics of Get-Passives. Journal of the Faculty of International Studies, Utsunomiya. Sawasaki, K. (2000). On adversity in English get-passives. Journal of Hokkaido Linguistics 1, 15-28. Siewierska, A. (1984). The Passive: A Comparative Linguistic Analysis. Croom Helm: London. Sportiche, D. (1988). A theory of floating quantifiers and its consequences for constituent structure. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 425-450. Stein, G. (1979). Studies in the function of the passive. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Sussex, R. (1982). A note on the Get-passive Construction. Australian Journal of Linguistics 2, 83-95 Vanrespaille, M. (1991). A semantic analysis of the English get-passive. Interface 5(2), 95112. Weiner, E. & Labov, W. (1983). Constraints on the agentless passive. Journal of linguistics 19(1), 29-58.

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(Corresponding author) Dominic Thompson Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology University of Glasgow 58 Hillhead Street Glasgow, G12 8QB, UK [email protected]